FIGHTING BULLIES

Reid sounds a call for passionate lawyering and issues a stern assessment of the modern U.S. legal profession.

In his nonfiction debut, the author, a trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor, opens stark and strong: “Everything you’ve been told about being a lawyer is wrong.” He examines the negative press that tort reform has garnered over the years, characterizing it as a product of “corporate money and self-interest,” which Reid calls “propaganda.” Tort reform, per the author, has therefore led to changes that hurt ordinary people; “along the way, it’s poisoned the public perception of plaintiffs’ lawyers as well.” Reid aims to offer a corrective alternative in which the two typical goals of those attending law school—either landing a spot at a prestigious law firm or a job as a virtuous public defender—are understood to be far from the only or even the most attractive career choices for aspiring lawyers. “You don’t have to choose between making a difference and making a living,” Reid writes; you can choose plaintiffs’ law instead. He describes the standard funnel into which law students get sucked, starting with the on-campus interview, leading to law school (where, the author points out, most of the professors have never practiced law), and then to what he describes as “BigLaw” with little or no information given to other possibilities. Avoiding this “vicious cycle” can be done, but it’s tricky, and Reid is here to offer a road map. The centerpiece of his book is his advocacy for practicing plaintiffs’ law, which, he states, “laid the foundation for the modern Western world and America.” Though Reid passionately makes a case for this much-maligned branch of the profession, the book’s most memorable feature is its withering condemnation of BigLaw, where the author describes awestruck clerks getting invited to partners’ homes where “they will sip cocktails … looking out over a lake, and earn more in a week than they’ve earned in a month.” This pitch-perfect scorn will likely convince more readers than the book’s central argument for finding a middle way.

A knowledgeable and compelling opinionated X-ray of the modern legal machine.