Balance of Power

    And why are plaintiffs' lawyers more blameworthy than the defense lawyers for the tobacco and asbestos industries—some from the most prosperous firms in America—who earn five hundred dollars an hour bludgeoning plaintiffs who are dying of cancer or emphysema?

    Palmer laughed softly. "Where's Paul?" he asked. "I'm dying to hear his answer."

    Senator Harshman, Kilcannon continued, emphasized time and again that you represent the men and women of Main Street. Many of you own small

businesses. But who does he suppose supports your companies and stores? For the most part, ordinary people. After all is said and done, we all should be together in this.

    This leads to yet another hard truth the senator failed to mention—that a knee-jerk condemnation of lawsuits too often favors the rich and powerful at the expense of the injured and the powerless—including, perhaps, your own family and friends.

    He bitterly condemned class actions. Would he argue that it's all right for a crooked corporation to destroy the pensions or investments of ordinary people

who, as individuals, no longer have the means to sue?

    He attacked contingent fees for plaintiffs' lawyers. Would he deprive ordinary people of lawyers because they lack the wherewithal to pay one to oppose the array of lawyers a massive corporation can use to grind them down?

    He deplored politicians who accept the support of plaintiffs' lawyers. Is he suggesting that those who accept donations from defense lawyers and their corporate clients somehow are immune from his criticisms?

    Leo Weller, Fasano observed, was now glued to the screen, all scorn or jollity vanished. There was a political problem, Fasano faintly remembered, in Montana—something about mines and asbestosis. On the screen, Kilcannon raised his head with an air of challenge.

    My political opponents, he said in a calm clear voice, will accuse me of class rhetoric and facile populism. But their antilawyer rhetoric too often masks a defense of privilege against the rights of ordinary Americans. Pausing, the President gazed out at his listeners. Too often, this simplistic lawyer-bashing helps them to manipulate the legislative process to protect their corporate patrons, and to bar the ordinary people their patrons injure from seeking justice.

    If this sounds too harsh, ponder why we have consumer protection laws

which protect children from defects in toy guns and candy cigarettes, but exempt the real thing . . .

    "No mystery," Palmer answered. "It's because the folks who made the real thing have bought us. That's what campaign finance reform is all about." Under his breath, Leo Weller issued a grumble of dissent.

    In those cases, Kilcannon was saying, litigation is not simply the last resort of ordinary people—it's the only protection they've got.

    Abruptly, his tone became softer and more conciliatory. The question is not whether some lawyers are unscrupulous—they are.