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Freedom Book of the Month for March, 2003:
The Rule of Lawyers: How the New Litigation Elite Threatens America's Rule of LawIf lawyers thought they got little respect from the general populace before, they'd better get ready to hit a new low when more people read The Rule of Lawyers: How the New Litigation Elite Threatens America's Rule of Law. Think you've heard it all about outrageous jury awards? Think that you know all the dirty little tricks lawyers use? Walter K. Olson's revelations will likely astonish most people who aren't intimately acquainted with the American legal system.
Olson has researched the shift toward more flexible litigation, and in the introduction he reveals its origins -- an article written in 1976 that outlined the justification for easing the rules on filing class-action lawsuits, and provided a long list of harms and the businesses that could be sued over them. Not surprisingly -- the volume the article appeared in was co-edited by Ralph Nader -- auto makers were a big target. Tobacco companies, junk food makers, any business that could conceivably be held accountable for some harm ought to be sued -- and they are being sued these days. While blaming "Nader acolytes" for much of it, Olson also properly points out that restrictions on litigation that are common in other countries, most notably "loser pays", are absent in the U.S., which compounds the problem.
From there Olson recounts cases that are now burned into our minds: tobacco; gun manufacturers; breast implants; and asbestos all get time in the limelight, with Olson providing background and insight into each. In the tobacco case, for example, Olson documents the outrageous fees the lawyers received -- over $8 billion for just three states -- and shows how the settlement was structured so that new companies or shifts in sales revenue won't undercut future payouts from "Big Tobacco".
Olson goes further, identifying practices by lawyers such as Dickie Scruggs, Peter Angelos, and Walter Umphrey that made them millionaires, while companies, particularly foreign-owned ones, cringe at the thought of being sued by them or the other "litigators on horseback". These practices include choosing the jurisdiction for a class-action suit very carefully; using jury selection to virtually guarantee a huge damage award; and the particularly insidious practice of lawyers contributing very, very generously to the political campaigns of the judges who will hear their future cases.
In just ten chapters, Olson provides a clear, compelling analysis of class action litigation and the lawyers who press for it run amok. As the subtitle implies, the situation has transformed the justice system into a "just us" system, with the lawyers having their way, and undermining the rule of law in the U.S. Olson does a masterful job of presenting the complexities of the legal system in straightforward, nontechnical language. The Rule of Lawyers is a very important book: one to be read and shared with others.
Order at Laissez Faire Books, $17.95
More book information for March 2003
edited by Sunni Maravillosa
February 2003: Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths, edited by Ronald Bailey
December 2002: Blood of the Roses, by Alex Gabbard
November 2002: The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, by Ludwig von Mises
October 2002: The Haunted Air, by F. Paul Wilson
September 2002: Lead Astray and Out of Bounds, Out of Control by Peter Samuel and James V. DeLong respectively
August 2002: Boston's Gun Bible II by Boston T. Party
July 2002: Economics for Real People by Gene Callahan
June 2002: Net Assets by Carl Bussjaeger
May 2002: The Ballad of Carl Drega by Vin Suprynowicz
April 2002: Toward Liberty: The Idea that is Changing the World edited by David Boaz
March 2002: Liberty for Women edited by Wendy McElroy
February 2002: The State vs. the People by Aaron Zelman and Claire Wolfe
Freedom Book of the Year, 2001: Hope by Aaron Zelman and L. Neil Smith
January 2002: Death by Gun Control by Aaron Zelman and Richard W. Stevens
December 2001: The American Zone by L. Neil Smith
November 2001: Ayn Rand and Business by Donna Greiner and Theodore Kinni
October 2001: Junk Science Judo by Steven J. Milloy
September 2001: Jonathan Gullible by Ken Schoolland
August 2001: Hope by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman
July 2001: Dissenting Electorate edited by Wendy McElroy and Carl Watner
June 2001: Tethered Citizens by Sheldon Richman
May 2001: Lever Action by L. Neil Smith
April 2001: The Cato Handbook for Congress from the Cato Institute
March 2001: The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand by David Kelley
February 2001: Crypto by Steven Levy
January 2001: Total Freedom by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Freedom Book of the Year 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
December 2000: The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto
November 2000: Escape from Leviathan by J.C. Lester
October 2000: The Art of Political War by David Horowitz
September 2000: An Enemy of the State by Justin Raimondo
August 2000: The Triumph of Liberty by Jim Powell
July 2000: A Generation Divided by Rebecca Klatch
June 2000: Law's Order by David Friedman
May 2000: Forge of the Elders by L. Neil Smith
April 2000: Reciprocia by Richard G. Rieben
March 2000: The Art of Fiction: A Guide for Writers and Readers by Ayn Rand
February 2000: Addiction is a Choice by Jeffrey A. Schaler
January 2000: Revolutionary Language by David C. Calderwood
Special December 1999 Feature: The Freedom Book of the Year: Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998 by Vin Suprynowicz
November 1999: Conquests and Cultures by Thomas Sowell
October 1999: A Way To Be Free by Robert LeFevre, edited by Wendy McElroy
September 1999: Assassins (Left Behind) by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
August 1999: Don't Shoot the Bastards (Yet): 101 More Ways to Salvage Freedom by Claire Wolfe
July 1999: The Mitzvah by L. Neil Smith and Aaron Zelman
June 1999: The Incredible Bread Machine by R.W. Grant
May 1999: Send in the Waco Killers by Vin Suprynowicz
April 1999: It Still Begins with Ayn Rand by Jerome Tuccille
March 1999: The Dictionary of Free-Market Economics by Fred Foldvary
February 1999: Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand edited by Mimi Reisel Gladstein and Chris Matthew Sciabarra
In December 2004 this page was modified significantly from its original form for archiving purposes.
, founded in 1995, is now a part of ISIL.
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