Total Page : 544
Publisher : Broadway
Publication Date : 2010 03 02
>> Good Intentions Confounded or Cut From the Same Cloth
The gloss starts on the cover of the book with the subtitle the story of the lawyer who brought corporate America to its knees Never even close to the truth while Bill Lerach certainly attracted the enmity of corporate America this hyperbole does nothing to answer the most interesting question why did this happen and how did he get away with it for so long
There is a great deal of debate over the efficacy of class action litigation as a means to keep corporations honest Given the state of the world it seems a good case can be made that they fail as a tool to curb wrongdoing It s also the case that for every Enron WorldCom and HealthSouth case there were a significant number of cases that were groundless but were settled to avoid the cost and distraction of protracted litigation At the end of the day in view of the enormous wealth acquired by Bill Lerach Mel Weiss and other members of the plaintiffs bar much of the benefit of the litigation seems to have accrued to the lawyers rather than the investors
I was interested to see that another reviewer concluded the authors disliked Lerach I reached quite the opposite conclusion They seem to put him on a pedestal lending credence to the position that his good works outweigh his unjustifiable conduct The truth of the matter is that greed is not confined to the executive suite or law firms for that matter It s difficult for humans whatever their station in life to not succumb and take the easy way out
The story did jump around and the sequence of events was occassionally hard to follow And there were some technical issues as other reviews have pointed out It is certainly an interesting story and a cautionary tale but one at the end of the day gives far too much credit to Bill Lerach He is a thief plain and simple
>> Bill I Hardly Knew You
This book is interesting journalism about a character who is bigger than life Bill Lerach is a brilliant individual whose creative theories and ruthless execution made his an enemy of many companies The authors decided to tell a story and they told a fascinating one with unbelievable characters The story really is similar to others in 1990 who started out with an effective business plan and then overdid and destroyed themselves In many ways Lerach was not different than the Enron folks who he clearly hated He was so caught up in the need to make money or to be powerful that he felt the normal rules of law did not apply to him He cheated to get cases It is unclear from the book whether he thought he could do a better job or that he was manic
Like so many people like him he either never had a moral compass or he lost it In any event he became a disgrace to the bar through his tactics
My issue with this book is that there is no effort to consider the real issues seriously I was hoping there would have been an more in depth consideration of Lerach s contribution to general welfare Also I missed any analysis by the authors of why they felt he acted as he did i do not believe that the authors made the case that people like Lerach reduce corporate fraud I think because they destroy respect for the system they give the abusers the ability to say the law is not fair so I am not doing anything wrong by abusing it Like Lerach explaining why he bought plaintiffs The lack of such an effort did not reduce the pleasure of reading this book I just felt cheated that I did not get to understand Bill better
>> Compelling fascinating fair and insightful
A tremendous book A gripping page turner that every reader will enjoy even people without a background or specific interest in politics or law Objectively and thoroughly reported the authors make complex subjects understandable and present the tale of a larger than life character in a tale that someone will certainly turn into a blockbuster movie
