Americans will sue each other at the slightest provocation. These are the sorts of stories that fill schoolteachers and doctors and Little League coaches with dread that the slightest mistake�or offense to an angry or addled parent or patient�will drag them into litigation hell, months or years of mounting legal fees and acrimony and uncertainty, with the remote but scary risk of losing everything. And while lawsuits can be a force for good, they are also changing and complicating the lives of millions of American professionals in ways that confound common sense and cast a shadow over a system that can, at its best, offer people relief and redress from legitimate grievances.
Newsweek has the article here via msnbc.com. And Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has a companion essay supporting civil jury trials (aka trial lawyers) here.