What role are the plaintiff lawyers playing in the auto safety system today?
They characterize themselves as the last line of defense, or the only bulwark. Trial lawyers play a sometimes contradictory role in automotive safety now. On the one hand, they like to portray themselves as the last line of defense protecting consumers. On the other hand, their obligation is not to the general public — their obligation is to their client. But very often, their client’s interests are different from those of the general public. In the case of the Firestone tires, each individual client’s interest was that there be no information given to regulators, for fear that there might be an investigation. Their interest was that the settlement and any documents obtained be sealed, because that way they could get more money from the automakers. The lawyers share the client’s interest in the sense that they get a third of whatever the client does [get] in the financial settlement. … Trial lawyers love rollover cases in particular, above any other kinds of crash cases, because rol
