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The Myth Of The Litigious Society
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Book Synopsis The Myth of the Litigious Society by : David M. Engel
Download or read book The Myth of the Litigious Society written by David M. Engel and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While the United States is often called the Land of the Law Suit, in reality Americans hardly sue at all. In fact, when it comes to physical injuries, over 90% of the time, we--as David M. Engel points out in his engaging and provocative book--simply lump it, making no claims against either the injurers or their insurance companies. Bringing to bear an impressive array of research and data, Engel firmly and persuasively demolishes the pervasive myth of the litigious American. But why don t most people sue whey they have been wrongfully physically injured? We have in fact a mystery, what Engel calls The Case of the Missing Plaintiff. The solution his investigation leads us to is as fascinating as it is unexpected. Engel reconstructs how people who suffer injuries actually react to them. When real people experience physical injuries, their lives, thoughts, and emotions are profoundly disrupted and compromised. They often have difficulty thinking clearly and acting decisively. Human nature, our immediate friends and families, and broader social and cultural factors all tend again injury victims making claims. And as often as one might have heard of victim-blaming, self-blame is one of the most common reactions of victims to their injuries. Ultimately Engel shows that the proliferation of law and regulations in our society is not the problem. The real problem is the law s failure to protect those who suffer wrongful injuries. Tort law is usually said to serve three purposes that even those who want to curtail law suits would agree on: to compensate losses suffered by injury victims, to deter unnecessarily risky and harmful behavior, and to correct the moral injustice that results when one person or group injures another. Engel s book clearly and powerfully shows that none of these purposes is being met and concludes his investigation with recommendations for how they might be."
Book Synopsis Distorting the Law by : William Haltom
Download or read book Distorting the Law written by William Haltom and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-11-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, stories of reckless lawyers and greedy citizens have given the legal system, and victims in general, a bad name. Many Americans have come to believe that we live in the land of the litigious, where frivolous lawsuits and absurdly high settlements reign. Scholars have argued for years that this common view of the depraved ruin of our civil legal system is a myth, but their research and statistics rarely make the news. William Haltom and Michael McCann here persuasively show how popularized distorted understandings of tort litigation (or tort tales) have been perpetuated by the mass media and reform proponents. Distorting the Law lays bare how media coverage has sensationalized lawsuits and sympathetically portrayed corporate interests, supporting big business and reinforcing negative stereotypes of law practices. Based on extensive interviews, nearly two decades of newspaper coverage, and in-depth studies of the McDonald's coffee case and tobacco litigation, Distorting the Law offers a compelling analysis of the presumed litigation crisis, the campaign for tort law reform, and the crucial role the media play in this process.
Book Synopsis Rights of Inclusion by : David M. Engel
Download or read book Rights of Inclusion written by David M. Engel and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-06-15 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines how civil rights legislation impacts the lives of ordinary Americans, drawing on the experiences of sixty interviewees that have been victims of discrimination to discuss how civil rights impacted their lives.
Book Synopsis The Lawyer's Myth by : Walter Bennett
Download or read book The Lawyer's Myth written by Walter Bennett and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-02-15 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lawyers today are in a moral crisis. The popular perception of the lawyer, both within the legal community and beyond, is no longer the Abe Lincoln of American mythology, but is often a greedy, cynical manipulator of access and power. In The Lawyer's Myth, Walter Bennett goes beyond the caricatures to explore the deeper causes of why lawyers are losing their profession and what it will take to bring it back. Bennett draws on his experience as a lawyer, judge, and law teacher, as well as upon oral histories of lawyers and judges, in his exploration of how and why the legal profession has lost its ennobling mythology. Effectively using examples from history, philosophy, psychology, mythology, and literature, Bennett shows that the loss of professionalism is more than merely the emergence of win-at-all-cost strategies and a scramble for personal wealth. It is something more profound—a loss of professional community and soul. Bennett identifies the old heroic myths of American lawyers and shows how they informed the values of professionalism through the middle of the last century. He shows why, in our more diverse society, those myths are inadequate guides for today's lawyers. And he also discusses the profession's agony over its trickster image and demonstrates how that archetype is not only a psychological reality, but a necessary component of a vibrant professional mythology for lawyers. At the heart of Bennett's eloquently written book is a call to reinvigorate the legal professional community. To do this, lawyers must revive their creative capacities and develop a meaningful, professional mythology—one based on a deeper understanding of professionalism and a broader, more compassionate ideal of justice.
Book Synopsis The Medical Malpractice Myth by : Tom Baker
Download or read book The Medical Malpractice Myth written by Tom Baker and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: n January 2005, President Bush declared the medical malpractice liability system out of control.The president's speech was merely an echo of what doctors and politicians (mostly Republicans) have been saying for years - that medical malpractice premiums are skyrocketing due to an explosion in malpractice litigation. Along comes Baker, direct...
Book Synopsis Mass Torts in a World of Settlement by : Richard A. Nagareda
Download or read book Mass Torts in a World of Settlement written by Richard A. Nagareda and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The traditional definition of torts involves bizarre, idiosyncratic events where a single plaintiff with a physical impairment sues the specific defendant he believes to have wrongfully caused that malady. Yet public attention has focused increasingly on mass personal-injury lawsuits over asbestos, cigarettes, guns, the diet drug fen-phen, breast implants, and, most recently, Vioxx. Richard A. Nagareda’s Mass Torts in a World of Settlement is the first attempt to analyze the lawyer’s role in this world of high-stakes, multibillion-dollar litigation. These mass settlements, Nagareda argues, have transformed the legal system so acutely that rival teams of lawyers operate as sophisticated governing powers rather than litigators. His controversial solution is the replacement of the existing tort system with a private administrative framework to address both current and future claims. This book is a must-read for concerned citizens, policymakers, lawyers, investors, and executives grappling with the changing face of mass torts.
Book Synopsis This Is Not Civil Rights by : George I. Lovell
Download or read book This Is Not Civil Rights written by George I. Lovell and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-10 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since at least the time of Tocqueville, observers have noted that Americans draw on the language of rights when expressing dissatisfaction with political and social conditions. As the United States confronts a complicated set of twenty-first-century problems, that tradition continues, with Americans invoking symbolic events of the founding era to frame calls for change. Most observers have been critical of such “rights talk.” Scholars on the left worry that it limits the range of political demands to those that can be articulated as legally recognized rights, while conservatives fear that it creates unrealistic expectations of entitlement. Drawing on a remarkable cache of Depression-era complaint letters written by ordinary Americans to the Justice Department, George I. Lovell challenges these common claims. Although the letters were written prior to the emergence of the modern civil rights movement—which most people assume is the origin of rights talk—many contain novel legal arguments, including expansive demands for new entitlements that went beyond what authorities had regarded as legitimate or required by law. Lovell demonstrates that rights talk is more malleable and less constraining than is generally believed. Americans, he shows, are capable of deploying idealized legal claims as a rhetorical tool for expressing their aspirations for a more just society while retaining a realistic understanding that the law often falls short of its own ideals.
Book Synopsis The Litigation Explosion by : Walter K. Olson
Download or read book The Litigation Explosion written by Walter K. Olson and published by Plume Books. This book was released on 1992 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty years ago, Americans saw lawsuits as a last resort; now they're the world's most litigous people. One of the most discussed, debated, and widely reviewed books of 1991, The Litigation Explosion explains why today's laws encourage us to sue first and ask questions later.
Book Synopsis Litigious Society by : Jethro Koller Lieberman
Download or read book Litigious Society written by Jethro Koller Lieberman and published by . This book was released on 1981-05-28 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Invitation to Law & Society by : Kitty Calavita
Download or read book Invitation to Law & Society written by Kitty Calavita and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-04-11 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research and real-life examples that “lucidly connect some of the divisive social issues confronting us today to that thing we call ‘the law’” (Law and Politics Book Review). Law and society is a rapidly growing field that turns the conventional view of law as mythical abstraction on its head. Kitty Calavita brilliantly brings to life the ways in which law is found not only in statutes and courtrooms but in our institutions and interactions, while inviting readers into conversations that introduce the field’s dominant themes and most lively disagreements. Deftly interweaving scholarship with familiar examples, Calavita shows how scholars in the discipline are collectively engaged in a subversive exposé of law’s public mythology. While surveying prominent issues and distinctive approaches to both law as it is written and actual legal practices, as well as the law’s potential as a tool for social change, this volume provides a view of law that is more real but just as compelling as its mythic counterpart. With this second edition of Invitation to Law and Society, Calavita brings up to date what is arguably the leading introduction to this exciting, evolving field of inquiry and adds a new chapter on the growing law and cultural studies movement. “Entertaining and conversational.” —Law and Social Inquiry
Book Synopsis Making Rights Real by : Charles R. Epp
Download or read book Making Rights Real written by Charles R. Epp and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2010-02-15 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s a common complaint: the United States is overrun by rules and procedures that shackle professional judgment, have no valid purpose, and serve only to appease courts and lawyers. Charles R. Epp argues, however, that few Americans would want to return to an era without these legalistic policies, which in the 1970s helped bring recalcitrant bureaucracies into line with a growing national commitment to civil rights and individual dignity. Focusing on three disparate policy areas—workplace sexual harassment, playground safety, and police brutality in both the United States and the United Kingdom—Epp explains how activists and professionals used legal liability, lawsuit-generated publicity, and innovative managerial ideas to pursue the implementation of new rights. Together, these strategies resulted in frameworks designed to make institutions accountable through intricate rules, employee training, and managerial oversight. Explaining how these practices became ubiquitous across bureaucratic organizations, Epp casts today’s legalistic state in an entirely new light.
Book Synopsis Lawyers of the Right by : Ann Southworth
Download or read book Lawyers of the Right written by Ann Southworth and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely and multifaceted portrait of the lawyers who serve the diverse constituencies of the conservative movement, Lawyers of the Right explains what unites and divides lawyers for the three major groups—social conservatives, libertarians, and business advocates—that have coalesced in recent decades behind the Republican Party. Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than seventy lawyers who represent conservative and libertarian nonprofit organizations, Ann Southworth explores their values and identities and traces the implications of their shared interest in promoting political strategies that give lawyers leading roles. She goes on to illuminate the function of mediator organizations—such as the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy—that have succeeded in promoting cooperation among different factions of conservative lawyers. Such cooperation, she finds, has aided efforts to drive law and the legal profession politically rightward and to give lawyers greater prominence in the conservative movement. Southworth concludes, though, that tensions between the conservative law movement’s elite and populist elements may ultimately lead to its undoing.
Book Synopsis Regulation Versus Litigation by : Daniel P. Kessler
Download or read book Regulation Versus Litigation written by Daniel P. Kessler and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-02 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The efficacy of various political institutions is the subject of intense debate between proponents of broad legislative standards enforced through litigation and those who prefer regulation by administrative agencies. This book explores the trade-offs between litigation and regulation, the circumstances in which one approach may outperform the other, and the principles that affect the choice between addressing particular economic activities with one system or the other. Combining theoretical analysis with empirical investigation in a range of industries, including public health, financial markets, medical care, and workplace safety, Regulation versus Litigation sheds light on the costs and benefits of two important instruments of economic policy.
Book Synopsis Reconstructing Justice by : Franklin Strier
Download or read book Reconstructing Justice written by Franklin Strier and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1996-05-15 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lively and persuasive critique, Franklin Strier doesn't simply describe problems with the American trial system; he proposes reforms. He offers a detailed blueprint of how to improve our basic adversarial system while blunting its excesses and inequities. Strier points out that the jury system was originally intended to diffuse the power of the government, but criticizes the method by which jurors are selected, patronized, and manipulated. Among his suggestions: eliminate peremptory challenges, give jurors the authority, and judges the responsibility, to ask questions of witnesses, and use neutral expert witnesses.
Book Synopsis Failing Law Schools by : Brian Z. Tamanaha
Download or read book Failing Law Schools written by Brian Z. Tamanaha and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2012-06-18 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An essential title for anyone thinking of law school or concerned with America's dysfunctional legal system.” —Library Journal On the surface, law schools today are thriving. Enrollments are on the rise and law professors are among the highest paid. Yet behind the flourishing facade, law schools are failing abjectly. Recent front-page stories have detailed widespread dubious practices, including false reporting of LSAT and GPA scores, misleading placement reports, and the fundamental failure to prepare graduates to enter the profession. Addressing all these problems and more is renowned legal scholar Brian Z. Tamanaha. Piece by piece, Tamanaha lays out the how and why of the crisis and the likely consequences if the current trend continues. The out-of-pocket cost of obtaining a law degree at many schools now approaches $200,000. The average law school graduate’s debt is around $100,000—the highest it has ever been—while the legal job market is the worst in decades. Growing concern with the crisis in legal education has led to high-profile coverage in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, and many observers expect it soon will be the focus of congressional scrutiny. Bringing to the table his years of experience from within the legal academy, Tamanaha provides the perfect resource for assessing what’s wrong with law schools and figuring out how to fix them. “Failing Law Schools presents a comprehensive case for the negative side of the legal education debate and I am sure that many legal academics and every law school dean will be talking about it.” —Stanley Fish, Florida International University College of Law
Download or read book Restitution written by Ward Farnsworth and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Restitution is the body of law concerned with taking away gains that someone has wrongfully obtained. The operator of a Ponzi scheme takes money from his victims by fraud and then invests it in stocks that rise in value. Or a company pays a shareholder excessive dividends or pays them to the wrong person. Or a man poisons his grandfather and then collects under the grandfather’s will. In each of these cases, one party is unjustly enriched at the expense of another. And in all of them the law of restitution provides a way to undo the enrichment and transfer the defendant’s gains to a party with better rights to them. Tort law focuses on the harm, or costs, that one party wrongfully imposes on another. Restitution is the mirror image; it corrects gains that one party wrongfully receives at another’s expense. It is an important topic for every lawyer and for anyone else interested in how the legal system responds to injustice. In Restitution, Ward Farnsworth presents a guide to this body of law that is compact, lively, and insightful—the first treatment of its kind that the American law of restitution has received. The book explains restitution doctrines, remedies, and defenses with unprecedented clarity and illustrates them with vivid examples. Farnsworth demonstrates that the law of restitution is guided by a manageable and coherent set of principles that have remarkable versatility and power. Restitution makes a complex and important area of law accessible, understandable, and interesting to any reader.
Book Synopsis Specializing the Courts by : Lawrence Baum
Download or read book Specializing the Courts written by Lawrence Baum and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most Americans think that judges should be, and are, generalists who decide a wide array of cases. Nonetheless, we now have specialized courts in many key policy areas, and the degree of specialization has grown over time. Specializing the Courts provides the first comprehensive analysis of specialization in the federal and state court systems.
