Nagareda on Mass Tort Litigation

In a new featured column at PointofLaw, Richard Nagareda (Vanderbilt) argues that resolution of mass torts requires a reconception of the attorney-client relationship and the role of the civil tort system:

What is needed for mass torts is a corresponding legal response that would turn this leveraging into its own source of constraint—that would bestow the coercive authority needed to make peace, but only coupled with measures to link the interests of the peacemakers to the long-term viability of the arrangements they create. Such measures might include the overriding of existing lawyer-client retention agreements so as to link the fees to be obtained from clients by plaintiffs' lawyers to the peace terms that they fashion for non-clients who are otherwise similarly situated.

- SBS