For years and years before our situation exploded, the Breast Implant Litigation Group was developing and sharing information and techniques about how best to sue implant manufacturers. Public Citizen, aligned with the plaintiffs' bar, began selling kits on how to sue a breast implant manufacturer. I would imagine that the plaintiffs' attorneys choose new litigation targets the same way most companies decide which markets to pursue. It includes deposing hundreds of people and reviewing millions of documents, now using the latest information processing technology, just as any forward-looking business would. Finally, it involves preparing a case that can be marketed in courtrooms across the country.
Health care is an attractive market for plaintiffs' attorneys for a number of reasons.
First, there are no stakes higher than human health. Second, juries are understandably very sympathetic to plaintiffs who appear injured, regardless of what caused the injury or illness. Health care also provides the greatest return because it is a market that is constantly innovating or, in plaintiffs' attorneys parlance, is constantly taking risks. Another criterion is that the product must be used by a lot of people. To be sufficiently lucrative, a litigation target must be used by around a million people, or it isn t worth developing.