A Millennial Plaintiff Lawyer Will End Climate Change

I know. The title of this post is crazy. It inflames the inner cynic in all of us.

Just do me a favor. Spend a couple of minutes reading this post and then forward it on to the brightest, hungriest, most optimistic young plaintiff lawyer you know.

As a thank you for ignoring your inner skeptic and planting the seed of aspirational plaintiff lawyering, I will buy you a drink the next time you are in New Orleans. Over a cocktail of your choice, we can make a list together of all the reasons why the premise of this post is utterly impossible, especially in today’s legal world.

But until then — why can’t a Millennial plaintiff lawyer end climate change?

I don’t mean “end climate change” in a “create a scientific solution” kind of way. I don’t mean “end climate change” in a “create a legislative solution” kind of way. I mean “end climate change” in a “create a litigated tipping point” kind of way.

Plaintiff lawyers at their highest level of collective good for the Republic create litigated tipping points that lead to tough but necessary change.

In the 1950’s, a creative group of plaintiff lawyers set about to systematically dismantle racial segregation in the United States. In May 1954, after a string of decisive legal victories, these plaintiff lawyers scored a monumental Supreme Court victory in Brown v. Board of Education. The Montgomery Bus Boycott began thereafter in 1955 and Martin Luther King, Jr. entered the fray. Civil rights and voting legislation came to fruition in the 1960s. Litigated tipping points were a vital component for tough but necessary social change.

When the first reports emerged linking cigarettes to cancer in the 1950s, plaintiff lawyers began suing cigarette manufacturers. While their ultimate success is now taken for granted, it was anything but a “sure thing” when the litigation began. Plaintiff lawyers spent decades getting their teeth kicked in by Big Tobacco, unable to overcome the overwhelming defenses that the product was not harmful, cancer was caused by other factors, and/or users assumed the risk.

It was not until the 1990s that plaintiff lawyers began having limited success after industry documents were leaked and whistleblowers came forward. In November 1998 the attorney generals of 46 states and four of the largest tobacco companies agreed to settle state cases. Tobacco companies agreed to refrain from certain advertising practices and pay annual sums of money to the states to help subsidize the public health care costs related to smoking. The settlement also funded wide spread anti smoking education. Litigated tipping points were a vital component for tough but necessary change in the area of public health.

I hope I live long enough to see a pack of Millennial plaintiff lawyers take on climate change. Perhaps a Baby Boomer lawyer or their Gen X offspring will come up with the case or cases that create the litigated tipping points that help end climate change. But I don’t think so. We are too tired from our own generational fights and/or too cynical to possess the vision and creativity that a multi-front litigated war against climate change will require. My gut tells me that if there is to be a litigated tipping point on this massive issue, a Millennial plaintiff lawyer(s) will have to find it.

Somewhere in a little Main Street office in rural North Dakota or a cramped cubicle in downtown Boston, there is a bright, hungry, young plaintiff lawyer that will come up with the case theory or theories that lead to the greatest litigated tipping point of all time. She will collaborate with friends and colleagues and something good will grow.

The young lawyers that dare take on this fight will be told they will lose. They will probably lose over and over and over again. Until they don’t. When they manage to win one or two, other plaintiff lawyers will follow. When other plaintiff lawyers follow, new ideas will form, momentum will build, perhaps the legislative branch will follow, and in 40 or 50 years things will be different.

The Millennial plaintiff lawyers that lead this charge may emerge wealthier than they ever could have imagined. But before then, they will likely find themselves severely leveraged or broke, financing this longest of odds litigation.

Marriages will fail. Hair will turn grey or be lost altogether. Unhealthy amounts of weight will be gained or lost. Pursuing long odds and lost causes is brutal work.

The odds are certainly stacked against the type of aspirational plaintiff lawyering that produces massive tipping points. But just what if, amidst gerrymandered and dysfunctional legislative and executive branches, litigated tipping points emerge via the civil justice system that help end climate change?

The mysterious Millennial lawyer is the topic of cocktail conversations, bar journal articles, and CLEs. How do we “manage” these Millennials? What changes will they bring about in the way we practice law?

I don’t know the answer to these questions. Nor do I believe that our ongoing analysis of how Millennials will change the process of practicing law is even that important. It seems like a small exercise when talking about a massive  generation that has the capacity to substantively change its surroundings in profound ways.

The question we should be asking ourselves, and more importantly Millennials, is what substantive impact will You have on our civil justice system?

So write this one down. I am calling my shot on this day in 2017. The longest of long odds in the Millennial prediction game.

A Millennial plaintiff lawyer will end climate change.

---

Jed Cain is a trial lawyer and partner with Herman, Herman, & Katz, LLC in New Orleans, Louisiana. Jed writes about family, the law, and Louisiana current events at Cain’s River. He can be reached by email at [email protected].