Structured Settlements 4Real®Blog 2026

Something just doesn't feel right about this John Edwards Forge Consulting thing.

Before getting into the discussion let's start with a timeline.

TIMELINE

• John Edwards serves as one-term United States Senator from North Carolina Jan 6, 1999- January 2005
• Forge Consulting is founded in 2003.
• Forge Consulting Testimonial Page 02/10/2004  No John Edwards testimonial
• Forge Consulting Testimonial Page 03/24/2004  No John Edwards testimonial
• Forge Consulting Testimonials Page 08/10/2004 No John Edwards testimonial
• "During the months that followed the 2004 campaign, Edwards was courted by a number of organizations; he told interviewer Larry King that he doubted he would return to his previous occupation as a trial lawyer and showed no interest in the possibility of becoming the Democratic National Committee chairman, a post then filled by fellow nomination contender Howard Dean"…according to Wikipedia. Post 2004 campaign "He is the former Director of the Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. " John Edwards 2008 website. Then there is of course is experience with Fortress.   None of John Edwards' activity shows ANY opportunity for John Edwards to personally use Forge Consulting for structured settlements (as "the testimonial" suggests).
• Forge Consulting is a major fundraiser for John Edwards and the Democratic National Committee Source: Public information
• Forge Consulting Testimonials Page 02/08/2005 No John Edwards testimonial
• Forge Consulting Testimonials Page 10/28/2005 No John Edwards testimonial
• October 29, 2005 John Edwards' Highest Recommendation Testimonial first appears on the Forge Consulting website
• February 21, 2007 Structured Settlements 4Real obtains evidence that Forge Consulting president John Bair is using John Edwards' name and testimonial to influence the sale of highly regulated insurance and financial products to New York State based trial lawyer consumers and their clients Download forge_feb_21_2007_letterny_statejohn_bair.pdf .
• March 2007, in interview with Katie Couric ,John Edwards looks into the camera at the American people and says he is open to scrutiny.
• March 27, 2007 In a letter to John Edwards this author first asks questions concerning the nature of his relationship to Forge Consulting and the John Edwards testimonials.The process continues over the next 3.5 months as Edwards, given the opportunity to respond to support his claim that he is open to scrutiny, is mysteriously silent.
• Forge Consulting Testimonials Page 07/13/2007-Present No John Edwards Testimonial. Page has listed as "under construction" for over 70 days!.
• According to Wayback archive records, on October 28, 2005 John Edwards did not appear on the Forge Consulting website testimonial page. BUT on October 29, 2005 he did. The process of adding John Edwards name to the top of the pile apparently took only  one day. This appears to be significant!

Comments and Discussion

• If testimonials were valuable to the marketing efforts of Forge Consulting, as evidenced by more than 3 years of testimonial posting then why hasn't the testimonial page been restored minus John Edwards' name?  What's the matter…don't the opinions of David Bikofsky, Douglas K. Sheff, Leo V. Boyle, David Gates, Jeff Lichtman, the HIll-Boren Law Firm, Bill Stone and Willian H. Nicholson, III mean anything? Or is it possible that the testimonial no longer represent the current opinion of these people about Forge Consulting? Or is it possible that these folks do not want to have their name associated with Forge when the poop eventually hits the fan?
• It took one day to add John Edwards name to the Forge Consulting testimonial page, why would it take longer than one day to restore the testimonial page without his name?
• 183 days have gone by and John Edwards has still not answered my questions concerning the Forge Consulting relationship. Of particular interest is if he ever did any structured settlement business with Forge Consulting prior to the time he made the testimonial. It doesn't seem possible given the timeline.

I hate to speculate but logically there is more to this than meets the eye. The 183 day silence suggests that John Edwards may have actually given the testimonial. I can only imagine the level of embarrassment it would be if a Presidential candidate were found to have given a professional testimonial about a company, without having used the services of that company (i.e in return for campaign contributions). 

Was there a cover letter sent by Edwards (or his agents) to Forge, or any of its principals, in 2005, or at any time, which authorized Forge to use John Edwards' name. Is there a writing in which John Edwards says "you have my endorsement, use it with my blessing and I wish you good fortune in using it"?  Wouldn't a person as important as John Edwards, who is a lawyer, whose wife is a lawyer, want control over how his name is used? It seems logical that there would be one. Don't you think that Forge Consulting would want something like that to protect themselves and, be cool. If such a document does exist then that would put some negotiating power in the hands of Forge would it not?

I can only imagine that Forge Consulting did not go down easy on this given the level of fundraising especially if Edwards really gave the testimonial and had there been an agreement for Forge to use his name. If Forge has something on Edwards could they, if their backs were up against the wall, turn the tables on Edwards? If someone worked Forge over…who was it?  The AAJ? The DNC? We do know that the appearance of "under construction" on the Forge Consulting testimonal page occurred during the American Association for Justice meeting in Chicago in July.

Is it possible, and this is speculation, that there was a deal brokered between Forge Consulting and the Edwards camp and/or the AAJ and/or the Democratic National Committee in which Forge Consulting agreed to take down the testimonial as long as John Edwards is a candidate for any reason. Is it also possible as part of the same deal, that in the event that Edwards wins the White House or loses then the race, the page can be restored with Edwards testimonial included on it on it? If it turns out to be true what would that say, about any of aforementioned stakeholders, to the American people?

One thing is for sure is that given the long time lapse, a sudden reappearance of the web page with Edwards "testimonial" will speak volumes. The hawks are watching!