Shark repellent.

• Author: Peters, Charles
• Position: Tilting at Windmills - Brief Article

One of my disputes with Ralph Nader over the years has concerned his tendency to depict trial lawyers as white knights in shining armor, dedicated to protecting the little guy from corporate abuse. Some of them are knights, but others am more dedicated to lining their pockets with the fat fees that they pick from the little guy's pocket. The class action is a much favored technique for doing the picking. And to realize the maximum take from a class action, it is necessary to be named the "lead counsel" by the court.

Because "the lead final collects the bulk of the fees and controls how the money is doled out to other lawyers," writes Kara Scammel in The Wall Street Journal, these knights in shining armor spend much of their time "elbowing each other." This tug of war, Scammel explains, "is all about money." And, I would add, not about justice.

The result is that the unhappy losers of the tug of war have...