The new softcover edition of The Rule of Lawyers, promoted in this space only a few days ago, arrived this afternoon from the printers. Yes, it looks nice. The front inside pages reprint eight excerpts from favorable reviews the book received last year in its hardcover edition, including the following from Gene Epstein at Barron’s: “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. And yes, he knows that tobacco and asbestos can kill people, and that corporations aren’t angels. Olson even proposes sensible ways of reforming the jury system that might actually make a difference.” The hardcover edition continues to be available here.
Posts Tagged ‘accolades’
The Rule of Lawyers: the softcover edition
If you enjoy this website, and especially if you want to learn more about the “big” lawsuit campaigns that generate fortunes for lawyers and tag industries with billions in liability, you would probably enjoy my book The Rule of Lawyers, which got a fair bit of attention when it was published last year. Now St. Martin’s, the publisher, has come out with a new softcover edition, just now posted on Amazon at an attractively priced $10.47. It includes a newly written epilogue in which I discuss major developments of the last year such as the fast-food litigation, the enactment of comprehensive tort reform in Texas, and the surprise move by the ABA to support reform of asbestos and class-action litigation, as well as the latest twists in gun, tobacco, fen-phen and lead paint courtroom battles, among others.
The hardcover edition of The Rule of Lawyers continues to be available here and seems to be a popular gift for Father’s Day and for new graduates, law school or otherwise. The Manhattan Institute maintains a site that compiles publicity about the book, related op-eds, etc. As for the spanking new softcover, the publisher tells me that the first copies will be in hand today, and that it will ship later this month. Its back cover is graced with an excerpt from Robert Lenzner’s rave review of the book for Forbes.com, in which he calls it: “A truly gripping read about tort lawyers … a brilliant expose of the way courts are being overwhelmed by mass tort actions.” (& thanks to David Giacalone for (end of item) his kind words).
Back from travel & award
I’m finally on web duty again following my trip to give a talk before the American Tort Reform Association gathering in Las Vegas. ATRA has two current projects that especially merit readers’ attention. One is its recent update of its “Judicial Hellholes” reports on local jurisdictions famed for unfairness to outsider defendants, such as Madison County, Ill., Jefferson County, Miss., St. Louis, Philadelphia, Miami and Los Angeles. Recent news coverage can be found here.
The other project is ATRA’s recent launch of what it calls the Legal Reform Champions List. The list is intended to address a widespread (and sometimes infuriating) phenomenon: many lawyers who make a career specialty of litigation defense quietly undermine their clients’ interests by working covertly or openly to block reforms that would curb the volume or cost of litigation, often mindful of their own self-interest in ensuring there are plenty of future lawsuits requiring their services to defend. ATRA’s new list takes a relatively positive approach to this problem: rather than denounce by name defense lawyers who operate as effective allies of the litigation lobby, it singles out for praise those who (often at a real cost to their strict monetary interest) work in the public policy process to combat excessive litigation. We wrote about this problem in The Rule of Lawyers (in a passage not online through conventional means, but available with registration through Amazon’s book-peek feature).
I am happy to report something I wasn’t expecting when I set off for the trip: at my Monday appearance ATRA was kind enough to give me its “Civil Justice Achievement Award” 2003. This seems to be the year for me to receive handsomely engraved awards (see Sept. 24). Thanks! (& welcome Ernie the Attorney readers)
Business Insurance “Best of the Web”
We’re happy to report that this site has been named a “Best of the Web 2003” pick by Business Insurance, a magazine we’ve been reading for many years to keep abreast of developments in the liability world. Columnist/reporter Mark Hofmann calls us “truly a treasure trove, so be sure you?ve allotted plenty of time when you visit this site — it merits more than a quick perusal”. He lauds our “impressive cache of archival material dating back to 1999”, says we provide a “valuable public service”, and — we especially like this part — recommends throwing a few coins in our Amazon Honor System donation box (see right column of front page) (overview / our write-up, scroll to second item)
Law.com: “The Future of Litigation”
American Lawyer/Corporate Counsel runs a multi-article feature on “The Future of Litigation (contents) with articles on asbestos, the Class Action Fairness Act, and other topics, some of them more to our taste than others. We shouldn’t omit mention of Alison Frankel’s overview piece (“Where We Are”, Law.com, Oct. 8) since it quotes a certain “litigation pundit who slays lawyer-excesses on his ‘Overlawyered’ Web site”.
Legal Reform Summit
As mentioned, I spent Monday attending the fourth annual Legal Reform Summit in Washington, D.C., an event co-sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform, the American Tort Reform Association, the Business Roundtable, the Doctors Company of Napa, Calif., and law firms Jenner & Block and Mayer Brown, Rowe & Maw. I gave a short talk on the subject of “who’s next as a target of mass litigation?”, which correspondent Mark Hofmann of Business Insurance magazine wrote up on the magazine’s web journal (“Employers face new wave of lawsuits”, Sept. 22).
I was also surprised and gratified, at the Summit’s awards luncheon, to be named the recipient of its annual “Individual Achievement Award”. The engraved glass award is now sitting on my desk even as I type. Many thanks to all concerned!
Welcome Phila., Denver, Okla., Jacksonville readers
We’re named among the weekly “Web Winners” picks of Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Reid Kanaley, who recommends us for “such class-action gems as the one in California demanding discounts for men on ‘ladies night.'” (Aug. 14). Vincent Carroll, writing in Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, predicts that the forthcoming Kobe Bryant trial is unlikely to resemble the atrocious O.J. Simpson trial, and quotes our editor on the question of jury selection and its abuse (“Spectacle of O.J. trial won’t repeat itself here”, Aug. 16).
FoxNews.com “Blog of the Week”
FoxNews.com’s “Views” section names us its “Blog of the Week“. If you’re interested in strange lawsuits that engage in creative blame-shifting, a good place to start is with our personal responsibility archives (& welcome Howard Bashman readers).