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Governance

Lawyer Barons What Their Contingency Fees Really Cost America

By Lester Brickman
Cambridge University Press 2011 ISBN: 9780521189491
Contact
communications@manhattan-institute.org
212-599-7000

About the Book

Lawyer Barons: What Their Contingency Fees Really Cost America, is a broad and deep inquiry into how contingency fees distort our civil justice system, influence our political system and endanger democratic governance. Contingency fees are the way personal injury lawyers finance access to the courts for those wrongfully injured. While the public senses that lawyers manipulate the justice system to serve their own ends, few are aware of the high costs that come with contingency fees. This book sets out to change that, providing a window into the seamy underworld of contingency fees that the bar and the courts not only tolerate but even protect and nurture. Contrary to a broad academic consensus, the book argues that the financial incentives for lawyers to litigate are so inordinately high that they perversely impact our civil justice system and impose other unconscionable costs. It thus presents the intellectual architecture that underpins all tort reform efforts.

About the Author

Lester Brickman, the author of Lawyer Barons: What Their Contingency Fees Really Cost America, is a visiting scholar at the Manhattan Institute and a professor of law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He is a leading authority on contingency fees and mass tort litigation. Professor Brickman has written extensively on these and other topics, testified at congressional hearings and is widely quoted in the press.

Media

RADIO
TalkZone's "InfoTrak"

TELEVISION
Time Warner Channel 56's "Larry Parks Show"

ONLINE INTERVIEW
Tuesdays with Tort Masters: Lester Brickman
TortsProfBlog, March 1, 2011 Sheila B. Shceuerman interviews Lester Brickman about his career and his new book, Lawyer Barons, on TortsProf Blog.

PODCASTS
Podcast: Lester Brickman and "Lawyer Barons"
Ted Frank, PointofLaw, March 28, 2011 Jim Copland interviews Lester Brickman in two ten-minute podcasts:Part I discusses the litigation explosion and class actions; Part II discusses contingency fees and Professor Brickman's "early offer" proposal.