Litigation

Think Globally, Sue Locally

By James R. Copland

Yesterday morning, at a conference co-sponsored by the Manhattan Institute, the Institute for Legal Reform at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a new paper entitled "Think Globally, Sue Locally: Out-of-Court Tactics Employed by Plaintiffs, Their Lawyers, and Their Advocates in Transnational Tort Cases" (PDF). In cases involving the 1789 Alien Tort Statute as well as other litigation -- including U.S. litigation to enforce dubious, fraudulently obtained foreign verdicts -- plaintiffs' lawyers are increasingly trying to use American courts to recover for alleged conduct that happened overseas. As the report documents, such litigation is typically accompanied by out-of-court media, community organizing, investor-relations, and political tactics.

The study author, Jonathan Drimmer, wrote this piece in The Wall Street Journal discussing his findings.

Full post as published by Point of Law on June 22, 2010 (boomark / email).