Law Commons^™

The Globalization Of Entrepreneurial Litigation: Law, Culture, And Incentives, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The fiftieth anniversary of Rule 23’s adoption in 1966 provides an opportunity to consider how legal change occurs. Law, culture, and incentives all play a role. But which dominates? The adoption of Rule 23 preceded a significant surge in the use of the class action, and some areas of litigation came to depend on Rule 23’s availability (e.g., securities litigation, antitrust litigation, and, for a time, mass torts litigation). Perhaps even more importantly, Rule 23 spurred the growth of the plaintiff’s bar, enabling small firms with a handful of lawyers to develop into major institutional firms of one hundred or …