Plaintiffs Bar

2006 Spring Symposium March 31 and April 1, 2006 New York Law School’s Center for Professional Values and Practice held its special symposium on the Plaintiffs Bar in the spring of 2006. The symposium featured keynote speaker Kenneth R. Feinberg, Special Master of the Federal September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001, who spoke on "The 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund: Plaintiffs' Bar to the Rescue."

Eminent speakers from around the nation—practicing lawyers and leading scholars—spoke on an array of topics:

• How can a lawyer do good and do well in plaintiffs’ work? Panelists shared their experiences in securities and business litigation, personal injury law, civil rights, and prison litigation.
• When, how, and why did the plaintiffs’ bar make its transition from struggling individual lawyers into a powerful, wealthy, and politically salient institution?
• Where is the defense bar headed?
• What explains the intensification of attacks on the plaintiffs’ bar in the last twenty years? How have plaintiffs’ lawyers been coping and with what results?
• Which changes in procedural and financing rules have had the greatest effects on litigation?
• What might the future hold for the plaintiffs’ bar?

The written contributions from this symposium were collected and published in a special symposium issue of the New York Law School Law Review. Individual articles are available for download by clicking on the titles below.