Kritzer on Personal Injury Defense Practice and Sociology of the Defense Bar

Posted by Alan Childress

Herbert Kritzer (UW, soon Wm. Mitchell) has posted to SSRN his article: “Defending Torts: What Should We Know?”  It is forthcoming in the Journal of Tort Law.  It follows a study on the commodification of insurance defense practice that Bert published last year in Vanderbilt Law Review and posted here.  Here is his abstract to the new article:

This paper considers the state of ourknowledge about the process of defending tort claims. A variety ofspecific topics are covered including relationships among the keyactors on the defense side (alleged tortfeasor, insurer, and defenselawyer); the incentives faced by these actors; the resolutions ofissues of liability, causation, and damages; different types ofclaimants; variations among tortfeasors and their insurers; conflictson the defense side; staff lawyers and in-house counsel; the problem ofdefending sure losers; and the use of experts by the defense. A briefappendix presents some data on the sociology of defense practice (i.e.,the characteristics of lawyers who describe themselves as specialistsin personal injury defense).