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Times too quick to see trial lawyer PR boost

By Mark Obbie

Jonathan Glater takes a savvy look at the litigation potential in the financial crisis today. He examines the potential deep pockets, theories of recovery, and other strategic calculations now being made by investors and lawyers. The net effect is a solid legal sidebar to the Wall Street mess. But I have one nit to pick, and that's with his lede. After this punchy first graf -- "Nothing makes lawyers more popular than bad times" -- Glater goes on to say that the litigation fallout from the financial crisis, and the hunt for corporate bad guys, will revive the tattered image of trial lawyers. The rest of the story proves nothing of the sort. It proves only that trial lawyers are likely to be busy, and to smell opportunity, and to face juries and judges made newly sympathetic to claims of corporate greed. But I don't see that his syllogism -- if financial victims are mad, corporate image suffers; if corporate image suffers, plaintiffs' lawyers image improves -- makes any sense.

Full post as published by Lawbeat on October 18, 2008 (boomark / email).