The Texas Review of Law & Politics has published my review of Thomas Geoghegan’s book. I differ from the favorable reviews of Adam Liptak and others:
Many books and writers have documented the problems caused by the tremendous expansion of liability in the last half century. In response, several writers on the political left have written defenses of unfettered liability or indictments of the tort reform movement, sometimes even rationalizing such infamous outliers as the McDonald’s coffee case as legitimate uses of the tort system.
The latest arrival in this genre comes from much-celebrated labor lawyer and author Thomas Geoghegan: See You in Court: How the Right Made America a Lawsuit Nation. Unlike many on his political side of the aisle, Geoghegan acknowledges that the litigation explosion has harmed America, but blames it on right-wing policies. Deregulation, deunionization, and the right’s putative dismantling of the legal system and Rule of Law, Geoghegan argues, have driven Americans to the courts by cutting off alternative routes to social justice. Geoghegan effectively demonstrates that the left should view skeptically the claims of the litigation lobby, a skepticism sadly disappearing from the political discourse as the Democratic Party more and more reflexively adopts the positions of trial-lawyer benefactors at the expense of its other constituents. But Geoghegan’s attempt to blame conservatives for the increased role of litigation in society suffers from non sequiturs, self-contradictory arguments, and a general failure to engage his opponents’ arguments fairly.
Thanks to those at Overlawyered who commented on an earlier draft and helped make the paper better by reminding me that political contributions were a revealed preference.
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In politics; regulation through litigation; Ted Frank
