Decades of research, court records, and investigative reporting have documented practices that can transform litigation from a search for justice into a business model built around maximizing attorney profit.

The methods take different forms. Claimants may be recruited through misleading or deceptive advertising. Experts may be retained and paid to develop litigation-driven “science” that cannot withstand rigorous, independent scientific scrutiny. Yet once such science is admitted in court, it can provide the foundation for thousands of claims and enormous settlement pressure—even when the underlying scientific conclusions remain disputed or unproven.

Witnesses may be coached or pressured to provide testimony that is false, exaggerated, or shaped to fit a claim. Lawsuits may be filed in such volume that the economics themselves become a weapon: defendants face pressure to settle not because the claims have been proven, but because the cost of defending thousands of individual cases can exceed the cost of making them go away.

When these practices occur, the economics of litigation can overwhelm the search for truth. Volume becomes leverage. Questionable science becomes the foundation for claims. And the cost of defending a lawsuit can become more important than whether the lawsuit is actually supported by the facts.

These are not merely stories about individual lawyers behaving badly. They expose a larger and more systemic problem: financial incentives can reward abusive litigation, while the institutions responsible for identifying and policing misconduct may fail to stop it. The consequences extend far beyond defendants. Consumers, workers, businesses, and legitimately injured plaintiffs can all bear the costs when the civil justice system rewards volume and financial leverage rather than truth and merit.