"This case is going to bring an ignominious end to your mediocre career," Bill Lerach

For those who want more insight into how the plaintiff bar thinks and operates, there's now a comprehensive biography of former securities-law attorney Bill Lerach. It's CIRCLE OF GREED: The specular rise and fall of the lawyer who brought corporate America  to its knees" by Patrick Dillon and Carl M. Cannon. 

At 466 pages, plus plenty of notes, it is a good primer on, for example, the ritual boasting of the plaintiff bar. It was standard procedure for Lerach to snarl at the defense lawyer, "This case is going to bring an ignominious end to your mediocre career!"  We recall how Ron Motley made a similar prediction about how the defendants in the Rhode Island lead paint public nuisance litigation were going to wind up.  Such war cries make the plaintiff bar more colorful and interesting than the defense one.

I wonder what the plaintiff bar in the Santa Clara, California lead paint litigation is projecting about its chance of winning against the defense teams of companies like DuPont and ARCO.

Now out of prison, Lerach might be teaching at the University of California Law School at Irvine.