The Rule of Lawyers
How the New Litigation Elite Threatens America's Rule of Law
(Olson, Walter K.. Truman Talley: St. Martin's. 2003. c.352p. index. ISBN 0-312-28085-8. $24.95.)
February 15, 2003

by Philip Y. Blue

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

©2003 Library Journal