Who EXACTLY represents the public's interest in civil litigation?

Civil cases between private parties clearly impact the general public; time is used by judges and court personnel, and decisions made by judges and juries can have a profound impact on the lives and businesses of countless people. I have heard many lawyers promote our tort system by arguing that it is very effective in preventing so-called transgressions by corporate America. Their view is that the threat of a lawsuit is key in preventing negligent behaviors before they occur. Of course, the lawyers have not actually been hired to represent the public’s so called best interests; they are hired only to get the most they can for their one client. In fact, no one represents the public’s interests in civil lawsuits, not even the judge, whose sole job is to referee the dispute before him.

What I find most troubling by the argument that these lawyers are acting in the public’s best interests is that they have not asked the public to define what its best interests are. Instead, they somehow equate the public’s best interests as identical to the amount of money they can get for the one client they actually do represent.

But what gives an individual lawyer the insight to know what is and what is not in the public’s best interest? Is the public’s best interest served by causing doctors and hospitals to run countless unnecessary tests just to avoid medical malpractice claims? Is the public’s best interest served by making the cost of doing business and the cost of buying insurance so high as to force companies out of business or to price their products so high as to make them uncompetitive? Is the public’s best interest served by filling operators’ manuals with dozens of useless warnings that very few people ever read, thereby reducing the importance of the few warnings they actually should read, just to have some warning in print to cover any potential lawsuit the company might face?

If the cost of all products the consuming public buys goes up because of money recovered by a very few people in civil lawsuits, is that in the public’s best interest? If everyone has to pay higher insurance premiums because a few people make large tort recoveries, is that in the public’s interest? In a criminal case, the prosecuting attorney in fact represents the public’s interest, but there is no attorney that looks after the public’s interest in a civil lawsuit.

Theoretically, the legislature is supposed to undertake this responsibility, but in truth, legislators only rarely consider the long-term impact of judicial decisions and really never have a broad debate about how the American legal system impacts our social and economic fabric as a country. Why not? Because the American public is even more litigious today than ever. The public today wants more, not less regulation, more, not less access to the courts, more focus on individual rights, and virtually no focus on the group rights of everyone else. In the end, we have only ourselves to blame. If the public actually understood the high costs of our current legal system, many people would have a very different attitude. Ignorance is bliss, at least for the lawyers.

My concern about this issue is what led me to write my novel, The Litigators. Try it out, then ask yourself, is the public’s best interest being served by our legal system as it functions today?

Join me next week for Is the cost of justice in the United States worth the price we pay?