The American Appetite for Tort Reform

Ted Frank, the tort-reform-industrial-complex's Internet cop over at the American Enterprise Institute, has generously pointed out in comments that Blocking the Courthouse Door is not likely to become a bestseller. Of course, I knew this. The publisher didn't even print enough copies of the book for me to earn out the advance (meaning they'd actually have to print more before I could ever see any royalties). Even my own agent has always believed that the book will tank. (Thank goodness for Dr. Phil, whose books subsidize all the rest of us losers at the Free Press!)

Truthfully, the American public could really care less about tort reform or the civil justice system, which is why most Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse groups generally don't have any citizens in them and have to be run by PR firms and chambers of commerce. It's the reason that when the tort reform blogs like Point of Law or Overlawyered write something nasty about me and link to my site, I see all of about 50 new readers as a result, whereas a link from the Washington Monthly blog generates several hundred.

Despite all those polls generated by ATRA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce claiming that 99.9 percent of Americans think there are too many frivolous lawsuits, tort reform doesn't even register on most voters' lists of political priorities. And despite all the media drumbeat heralding a "litigation explosion," most Americans will never file a suit, nor will they be sued.

So it's not hard to see why no one reads books about the civil justice system except maybe a few lawyers. The only reason that some of those tedious tort reform books get any circulation is that groups like Common Good and the Manhattan Institute use the big donations they get from insurance and tobacco companies to buy thousands of copies and then give them away to influential people like judges and reporters to create the false impression that there is a groundswell of support for their position. But the reality is that most people don't care about the legal system until they need it, and that's when they discover that you really can't win millions of dollars in the "lawsuit lottery" for slipping on a banana peel. A few of those folks might then buy my book...

Comments

[JMG]

My library just notified me that they approved my request for them to purchase a copy. If you publisher's publicist sent a flyer to ever plaintiff's group and bar and suggested the same, you could probably get more sales and do a public service by putting the book where more civilians are going to see it.