Are We A Litigious People?

Abstract

The notion is that “adversarial legalism” is extremely harmful. It is destroying the fabric of society. “Toughness,” of course, is not a concept which can be easily defined or measured. It is not easy to say more than that there is a lot of tough, hard litigation in the United States, and that lawyers are involved in these affairs. A “litigation explosion” must refer to some sort of rise in overall rates of litigation, per thousand population. The idea of a culture of claims cannot rest, in other words, on sheer numbers of cases. The thesis of adversarial legalism has another aspect to it, however; and that is the notion of American exceptionalism. The argument, in short, is that litigiousness and claims consciousness are part of American culture. American national history begins with a revolution against royal authority; but royal authority had probably rotted away even before the outbreak of hostilities in the late 18th century.