Robin Hoods or Legal Hoods? - New York Times

Good investigative reporting by the Times. Lawyers with questionable ethics who live off the gains of others by filing these mostly frivolous lawsuits deserve to have their chain pulled up short. I hope these crooks go to jail.

Here are the pros and cons of this sort of class action litigation:

"To critics, the lawyers embody what they say is amiss with modern class action suits: shifty and belligerent legal tactics, excessive paydays for lawyers and repeated blackmailing of straight-arrow corporations.

Supporters of the plaintiffs' bar respond that lawyers like Mr. Lerach and Mr. Weiss have led the way in ensuring corporate accountability, most notably in Mr. Lerach's tenacious, inventive litigation against the fallen energy giant Enron. Some plaintiffs' advocates also say that despite the lush fees that lawyers like Mr. Lerach and Mr. Weiss have snared, their lawsuits have served as a powerful deterrent against future corporate wrongdoing and have secured rich settlements that aggrieved shareholders might otherwise have never seen."