The Rule of Lawyers: How the New Litigation Elite Threatens America's Rule of Law

by Walter K. Olson

Overview

Big-ticket litigation is becoming a way of life in this country. But something new is afoot-something typified by the $246 billion tobacco settlement, and by other courtroom assaults against companies producing guns, cars, breast implants, asbestos, lead paint, and more. Each massive class-action suit seeks to invent new law, to ban, tax, or regulate something that elected lawmakers had chosen to leave alone. And each time the new attack process works as intended, the new litigation elite reaps billions in fees-which they invest in fresh rounds of suits, as well as political contributions.

The Rule of Lawyers asks: Who picks these lawyers, and who can fire them? Who protects the public's interest when settlements are negotiated behind closed doors? Where are our elected lawmakers in all this? The answers may determine whether we slip from the rule of law to the rule of lawyers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312331191
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/01/2004
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.86(d)

About the Author

Walter K. Olson is the author of The Litigation Explosion (1991). A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Olson has written on law and lawyers for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, City Journal, and others. He lives and works in Chappaqua, NY.

Table of Contents

	Introduction: Better Living Through Litigation	1
1.	The Joy of Tobacco Fees	25
2.	Serial Litigation	73
3.	Sunning for Democracy	99
4.	Stacked: The Breast-Implant Affair	129
5.	Trial Lawyer TV	153
6.	Asbestos Memories	181
7.	The Jackpot Belt	209
8.	The Art of the Runaway Jury	237
9.	The Lawsuit Lobby	263
10.	Litigators on Horseback	293
11.	Afterword	315
	Notes	327
	For Further Reading	351
	Acknowledgments	353
	Index	355

Editorial Reviews

A truly gripping read about tort lawyers...a brilliant expose of the way courts are being overwhelmed by mass tort actions.” —Robert Lenzner, Forbes.com

“Walter Olson lays out an entertaining, but disturbing chronicle of class-action abuses.” —David A. Price, The Wall Street Journal

“With a marvelous combination of irony, insight and outrage, Olson covers the whole range of opportunistic litigation over tobacco, asbestos, breast-implants, autos and guns....Olson even proposes sensible ways of reforming the jury system that might actually make a difference.” —Gene Epstein, Barron's

“Even lawyers, however, will find [The Rule of Lawyers] a tasty snack.” —Peter Schuck, The New York Law Journal

From the Publisher

Olson, a veteran legal commentator (The Litigation Explosion) and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, profiles a sector of the American legal system that he contends is out of control, inflicting serious damage on the nation's economy. The target of Olson's polemic is the use of class actions by a coterie of private lawyers who extract enormous verdicts and settlements from lawsuits against producers of tobacco, asbestos, automobiles, pharmaceuticals and the like. According to Olson, trial lawyers subvert democracy by using courtroom procedures to obtain reforms, such as regulating guns, which the American left has not been able to achieve in the federal or state legislatures. The lawyers distort public opinion, buy influence with judges through campaign contributions, introduce junk science into evidence and manipulate juries through unworthy courtroom theatrics. The class-action lawyers, Olson contends, garner stupendous fees for themselves, often produce minuscule payments to their clients and drive entire segments of business into bankruptcy. Olson contends that the class-action bar is bolstered behind the scenes by left-leaning organizations such as those affiliated with Ralph Nader. This is a partisan indictment, powerful enough in its recital of horror stories about misuse of the law, but so one-sided that it will appeal largely to those already convinced of the rectitude of big business. (Jan. 22) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Olson (senior fellow, Manhattan Inst.; The Litigation Explosion) frequently writes about the impact of law on society. Here he decries excessive and frivolous civil lawsuits, outrageous jury verdicts and awards, egregious class-action settlements, anything-goes jury-selection practices, and the bulging wallets of trial lawyers. He goes so far as to coin a term for a region of the United States synonymous with inimical and conspicuous legal consumption: the Jackpot Belt, which stretches along the nation's Gulf Coast and inland to its rural areas. Olson attempts to classify inhabitants of these and other mini-Jackpot Belts. While demographic patterns may be complex, one legal pattern is simple and constant: top trial lawyers with sharply honed skills can and do play to any audience and manipulate both juries and the adversarial system of justice. Olson notes the deleterious impact of such manipulative jurisprudence upon the separation of powers and exposes the unfortunate extent to which politics and money dictate justice. Recommended for academic and law libraries.-Philip Y. Blue, New York State Supreme Court Criminal Branch Law Lib., First Judicial Dist., New York Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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