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Friday, 27 February 2009 |
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| Congressman Jim Cooper and author Philip K. Howard |
CED hosted a discussion on legal reform that featured CED Trustee and author Philip K. Howard and Congressman Jim Cooper (D-TN) on ways to inject more common sense into the American legal system. Mr. Howard is the author of Life Without Lawyers a book that argues that we are being choked to death by too many laws, too many lawyers. Congressman Cooper has practiced law and holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
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| L-r: Jim Cooper, Philip Howard, Charles Kolb |
The informal luncheon forum focused on Philip Howard's findings and recommendations for making the United States a less litigious society. Each year more than 70,000 pages of new rules are added to the Federal Register and the proportion of lawyers in the workforce nearly doubled between 1970 and 2000. Howard is the author of two earlier books: The Death of Common Sense: How Law is Suffocating America and; The Collapse of the Common Good: How America's Lawsuit Culture Undermines Our Freedom. He is a periodic contributor to the op-ed pages of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and speaks before judicial, government, and professional organizations around the country. He is the founder and chair of Common Good, a non-profit, non-partisan legal reform coalition dedicated to restoring common sense to America. CED has worked with Common Good on efforts to reform the legal system. |
