"Who Killed the Mass Torts Bonanza?"

In a lengthy article in The American Lawyer, "Who Killed the Mass Torts Bonanza?" Alison  Frankel says that "[t]he power of the plaintiffs bar is on the wane in this country, and will be for a long time to come."  She notes the converging forces that been effective in limiting mass tort claims, including state tort reform efforts, legislatively and in changing the composition of state supreme courts, the management of mass tort litigation through multidistrict litigation, and new defense approaches to mass tort litigation.  She concludes by noting that "[p]laintiffs lawyers launched the mass tort era by exposing the grave wrongs that defendants inflicted on ordinary people" and that "[t]o revive it, they'll have to show those people that it's still the defendants--and not they--who are at fault."

MKS