The power of the plaintiffs bar is on the wane in this country, and will be for a long time to come.
You won’t hear many tort reformers admit it. They’ve done too good a job demonizing trial lawyers to let their bogeymen fade away. Twenty years ago, tort reform was an obscure movement with a funny name; today, politicians speak of “ending lawsuit abuse” or “eliminating frivolous lawsuits” — tort reform by more felicitous names — whenever they need a failsafe applause line. The movement’s success has been a public relations masterpiece.
