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Who is ultimately responsible for the harms that befall us? Corporations who make dangerous products, or the consumers who use them? The answer to this question has a profound impact on how personal injury lawyers screen products liability cases. In this paper, I analyze results from an experimental vignette study in which 83 lawyers were asked to evaluate a hypothetical products liability case. Half of the lawyers practice in states considered to be difficult jurisdictions for the practice of personal injury law due to tort reform and conservative political climates (Texas and Colorado), while the other half work in states that have been relatively unaffected by tort reform and are considered to be more "plaintiff friendly" (Pennsylvania and Massachusetts). While lawyers in reform states and non-reform states were equally likely to accept the hypothetical case with which they were presented, they approached the case in different ways, used different theories, and made different arguments in order to justify their acceptance of the case. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines social hierarchy within the plaintiffs' bar to consider the effects that organizational cultures and lawyers' social and status characteristics have on case evaluation. The initial task of this paper is to identify distinctions among lawyers based on such characteristics as experience, case load, gender, and reputation. I then ask how these characteristics affect case screening. I explore these questions, and their implications for citizen justice claims, in a comparative study based on in-depth qualitative interviews with 83 products liability and medical malpractice lawyers in four U.S. states, representing two types of state-level legal cultures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do lawyers decide what constitutes a "good" client? How does that definition change across legal environments? This paper explores the social construction of clients and their claims through an analysis of the processes by which plaintiffs' personal injury lawyers screen potential cases and clients. Whereas previous research has focused nearly exclusively on individual-level cost-benefit analyses associated with the screening process, this project considers the impacts that broader, state-level legal cultures have on the decisions lawyers make about which cases they will accept and which clients they will represent. I explore these questions, and their implications for citizen justice claims, in a comparative study based on indepth qualitative interviews and ethnographic field observations of 80 products liability and medical malpractice lawyers in four U.S. states, representing two types of state-level legal cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyze results from an experimental vignette study in which 83 personal injury lawyers were asked to evaluate a hypothetical products liability case. Half of the lawyers practice in states considered to be difficult jurisdictions for the practice of personal injury law due to tort reform and conservative political climates (Texas and Colorado), while the other half work in states that have been relatively unaffected by tort reform and are considered to be more "plaintiff friendly" (Pennsylvania and Massachusetts). While lawyers in reform states and non-reform states were equally likely to accept the hypothetical case with which they were presented, they approached the case in different ways, used different theories of liability, and made different arguments in order to justify their acceptance of the case. I close the paper with a discussion of the practical and theoretical implications of these differences in case screening and framing, including implications for access to justice. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how tort reform affects the ways in which medical malpractice and product liability lawyers decide which cases they will accept and which clients they will represent. Findings are based on in-depth interviews with 83 lawyers in four U.S. states (two which have passed a great deal of tort reform and two which have not). ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]