Publications

Contemporary critics assail the civil jury as “biased, sympathy-prone” and “hostile to corporate defendants.” Many businesspeople (and their lawyers) believe, sometimes from painful personal experience, that whatever the facts and the law, juries reflexively favor the “little guy” and enjoy redistributing the wealth of corporate defendants. Media accounts of big verdicts, from the McDonald’s coffee case to the staggering punitive damage awards against big tobacco companies, reinforce the common perception “of Modern American culture as pro-plaintiff,” especially when the plaintiff is an individual at odds with a large business.