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&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;The overall cost of litigation in the United States is around $300 billion, approximately 2% of the gross domestic product.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;This is more than the legal bills of the rest of the world combined.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;Believe it or not, Jennifer Rubin&amp;#8217;s recent &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/john-grisham-s-law-15164&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Commentary&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span&gt;&lt;em&gt; &lt;/em&gt;essay&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/a&gt;does not present this factoid as evidence of our national awesomeness.&amp;nbsp;On the contrary: it&#39;s meant as&amp;nbsp;damning indictment of our &amp;#8220;hyperactive, expansionist, and ruinously expensive&amp;#8221; legal system, where litigation has become a &amp;#8220;quasi-entrepreneurial business for ambitious lawyers.&amp;#8221;&lt;i&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Rubin, an attorney herself, decries the growth of contingent-fee representation, spiraling punitive damages, the absence of a &amp;#8216;loser pays&amp;#8221; rule, and other factors which create a climate in which there is&amp;nbsp;&amp;#8220;no longer a meaningful disincentive to sue.&amp;#8221;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; Of course, t&lt;/span&gt;his is a shopworn summary of the &amp;#8220;Right&amp;#8221; side (this being &lt;i&gt;Commentary&lt;/i&gt; after all) of the &amp;#8220;Right/Left&amp;#8221; ideological divide on the &amp;#8216;tort reform&amp;#8217; issue.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;But Rubin&amp;#8217;s essay is called &amp;#8220;John Grisham&amp;#8217;s Law.&amp;#8221;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;That&amp;#8217;s right: Rubin places a huge portion of the blame for the current state of affairs on the author of Playing for Pizza:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;span&gt;The real question to ask after two decades of his ubiquitous presence on the bestseller lists is whether the Grisham &amp;#8216;brand&amp;#8217; has had a measurable effect on the way civil litigation is conducted in the United States&amp;#8230;has Grisham&amp;#8217;s success tainted the American jury pool?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;Short answer (according to Rubin): Yes.&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The saturation of our popular culture by Grisham&amp;#8217;s depictions of Manichean legal struggles between dastardly corporations and victimized little guys &amp;#8220;has shaped and refined how ordinary citizens think of the law&amp;#8212;and in a meaningful way helped train potential plaintiffs, lawyers and jurors in the use of the law as a weapon against the purported enemies of the ordinary person.&amp;#8221;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;The whole (slightly unhinged?) thing here (sub. req&amp;#8217;d).&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;[Counterpoint: The Medical Malpractice Myth]&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;span&gt;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; &lt;/span&gt;-posted by brian&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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