The most recent book from our editor-in-chief, The Rule of Lawyers explores how plaintiffs' lawyers in America have become lawmakers themselves. Typified by the $246 billion tobacco settlement, courtroom assaults have targeted HMOs, gunmakers, lead-paint manufacturers and "factory farms." Each massive class-action suit seeks to invent new law, and in the process to ban or tax or regulate something that elected lawmakers had chosen to leave alone. And each time the new process works as intended, the new litigation elite reaps billions in fees--which the lawyers invest in fresh rounds of suits, as well as political contributions. [ed. 5/1/2004]