SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Legal Newsline)-California's leading tort reform group has on its staff one of the state Capitol's "most effective" lobbyists, a survey of lawmakers indicates.

Capitol Weekly, a weekly publication covering politics and legislation, asked state lawmakers what they thought of the Capitol's roughly 1,100 lobbyists.

Kimberly Stone of the Civil Justice Association of California was one of three lobbyists to take honors as being among the Capitol's "most effective conservative crusaders," the newspaper said.

In a statement to Legal Newsline, state Sen. Tom Harman of Huntington Beach, the Republican running for state attorney general, commended Stone's efforts.

"Kim is always on top of the issues and never shy about alerting policy makers to legislation that will encourage unnecessary lawsuits that serve no public interest and merely benefit greedy plaintiff's lawyers," Harman said. "Now, if we can just get some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to heed her advice, we would all be better off."

Stone, a former prosecutor, joined CJAC in 2005, after serving as development director of The Adelante Foundation, a non-profit micro credit organization in Honduras, which she co-founded with her husband.

Others honored along with Stone were Rex Hime of the California Business Properties Association and David Wolfe of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

On the flip side, Lenny Goldberg of Lenny Goldberg & Associates, Willie Pelote of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and Barry Broad of Broad & Gusman LLP were chosen as the most effective crusaders of liberal causes.

"Like all elections, this is not perfect science. But by and large, we think the results reflect a pretty good summary of some of the state's most effective advocates," Capitol Weekly said of its survey.

From Legal Newsline: Reach staff reporter Chris Rizo at chrisrizo@legalnewsline.com.