Civil Justice Memo No.
American lawyers wield more fearsome powers than lawyers in any other country.
One popular answer, at least among the bar, is that we thereby advance not just the interests of the lawyers and their clients but the public interest. Just like the coercive power of a regulatory agency or a public prosecutor, the force of litigation can expose and punish risky or unethical conduct, thus benefiting society at large. But this theory suffers from at least one glaring gap. It comes on the matter of disclosure. In the case of actual public prosecutors and regulatory agencies, we feel entitled to a close public accounting of how much they're spending and what they're accomplishing.