See You in Court: How the Right Made America a Lawsuit Nation

While just about everyone agrees that we've become a lawsuit nation, is it really class actions by a coterie of private trial lawyers whose enormous settlements and, in Karl Rove's words, "junk lawsuits" that are subverting democracy? Thomas Geoghegan, whom Time called "a modern-day Quixote of the legal profession," thinks not.

In this impassioned rebuttal to Philip K. Howard's The Death of Common Sense, Geoghegan deftly shows how conservatives' dismantling of America's postwar legal system opened the floodgates of litigation. Most often people sue, he argues, because of what they have lost--contract rights, pensions, health insurance, decent medical care, and strong unions. Without these methods of preempting and resolving disputes, Americans who face injury, bankruptcy, discrimination, or injustice are left with no recourse but the lawsuit.

Both smart and provocative, See You in Court shows why the right is wrong about the source of our lawsuit culture and points the way back to civil society.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: New Press
Published: 10/01/2007
ISBN: 9781595580993
Pages: 246
Weight: 0.94lbs
Size: 8.48h x 5.82w x 0.95d

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 07/01/2007 pg. 646
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2007 pg. 191
New York Times Book Review 01/18/2009 pg. 20