Follow Here To Purchase The Litigators

Author: Lindsay G. Arthur, Jr.

ISBN: 0-9765201-0-9

Publisher: Scarletta Press

Today, Norm Goldman Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com is pleased to have as our guest Lindsay G. Arthur, Jr. author of The Litigators.

Lindsay is also a well-known lawyer who has tried over 150 cases during his 35-year career, specializing in products liability lawsuits. In 1974 he founded his current law firm, Arthur, Chapman, Kettering, Smetak, and Pikala, a highly regarded litigation firm in Minneapolis. He is also an entrepreneur. In 1985 he founded a biotech company that uses genetic engineering to develop microorganisms to degrade toxic waste.

He has lectured and published extensively on a variety of legal topics. The Litigators, his first novel, combines his legal background with a bold critique of a myopic judicial system where lawyers focus on victory at all costs rather than addressing the human problems of their clients.

Good day Lindsay and thanks for participating in our interview!

Norm:

What motivated you to write The Litigators?

Lindsay:

I  had two goals in mind.  First, I have always dreamed of writing "The Great American Novel" and believed my first novel should focus on a subject matter with which I was professionally experienced.  The focus of my legal career has always been the defense of products liability lawsuits, and the focus of my avocation has principally involved science and the environment.  So that's what The Litigators is -- the story of a products liability case involving microbes that have been bio-engineered by a brilliant scientist and which are alleged to have caused grave injury to a delightful woman living nearby.  Second, I wanted to make a statement about what I believe are some serious flaws with the American legal system in order to generate discussion about these problems and promote changes that will significantly improve the way we resolve disputes with one another.

Norm:

How did you go about creating the characters of Henry Holten, Allison Forbes and Dillon Love?

Lindsay:

All my characters are composites of real lawyers with whom I have had cases, but enhanced to capture the idiosnycracies I wanted to highlight in order to make them come alive as people and illustrate the character flaws I wanted to develop with the story.  Like most novels about lawsuits, this one is also about good versus evil, but in The Litigators, there is a major twist to this theme -- both of the parties are good people and both deserve to win their lawsuit to such an extent that a victory by either one would be an injustice to the other.  Thus the battle between good and evil is not between the two reluctant litigants but between them and their lawyers, and it is the lawyers who are the evil they must battle to achieve the justice they both deserve.  . 

Norm:

What has been the best part about being published?

Lindsay:

To hear people discuss my book and ask questions about how the legal system can be improved, because that gives me tremendous satisfaction in knowing I achieved one of the main goals for writing the book.

Norm:

What do you hope readers will take away from reading your book?

Lindsay:

I hope they will recognize the case I depict as typical and will therefore conclude that the legal system has become an absurdly expensive and stressful way of resolving disputes.  I hope they will then start asking questions about how the system can be improved and what steps can be taken by all citizens to make the system more user friendly.

Norm:

What would you like to have changed in the legal profession?

Lindsay:  

I would like to make the system far less expensive, far less stressful, less adversarial, and used only as a last resort in those rare situations where reasonable discussions between the parties cannot resolve the dispute.  I have many very specific changes I would make, including a complete revision of the Rules of Civil Procedure, which govern the discovery process in all lawsuits, and which is at the root of the problem. 

Norm:

If your book were to be turned into a movie, who would you love to see play what characters and why?

Lindsay: 

I'd like Meryl Streep to play Allison, because she is a very complex character, and really the only lawyer who has even a basic understanding of the problem.  Meryl Streep could use the role very effectively to make the point I want to make and she would be a good person to illustrate Allison's internal conflicts and the hope that she might somehow lead the legal community out of the black hole it is fast approaching.  By the way, it is not an accident that the one shining light among the hoards of lawyers is a woman.  I believe women have done a lot to improve the legal system.  I haven't really thought about Dillon Love and Henry Holten because they are lesser roles, certainly less complex characters. 

Norm:

If you could have a dinner party and invite three authors - dead or alive - who would they be and what would you ask them about writing a novel?

Lindsay:

I 'd like to have a great novelist, perhaps F Scott Fitzgerald because he also graduated from Princeton University, and we could share a few stories together.  I would also like a great historian, perhaps Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has written my favorite non fiction treatise, A Team of Rivals. I would also like to balance out the group with a great poet, Robert Frost, because poets tend to see the world more objectively than anyone else, and he would keep all the rest of us on our toes.

Norm:

Where can our readers find out more about you and your book?

Lindsay: 

They can visit my AUTHOR'S SITE, my newest BLOG SITE which has an ongoing discussion of civil justice and legal practices, or my  PUBLISHER'S WEB SITE,  or my LAW FIRM WEBSITE.

Lindsay: 

I've got several other books in the mill.  Hopefully there will be a demand for them so I can carry some of my characters forward into new challenges and adventures.