Distorting the Law: Politics, Media and the Litigation Crisis (Chicago Series in Law and Society) Book

Stories of reckless lawyers and reed citizens have given the legal system, and victims in general, a bad name. Many Americans have come to believe that we live in the land of the litigious, where grossly frivolous lawsuits and absurdly high settlements reign. Scholars have argued for ears that this common view of the perversity of our civil legal system is mostly mistaken, but their research and statistics rarely make the news. William Haltom and Michael McCann persuasively show how distorted understandings of tort. litigation (or tort tales ) have by mass media narratives, savvy reform proponents, and revealing 'individualistic values. Distorting the Law demonstrates how routine media coverage has sensationalized lawsuits in ways that both benefit corporate elites and underscore negative stereotypes.,of the claiming of legal rights by ordinary Americans.Based on extensive interviews, analysis of nearly two decades of newspaper coverage,and in-depth studies of the McDonald's coffee case and tobacco litigation, Distorting the Lawoffers a compelling look at the presumed litigation crisis, the campaign for tort law reform, and the crucial role the media play in the process of producing mass legal knowledge.Read More