A trial lawyer. . . as a good guy?

by James Oliphant

With John Edwards out of the presidential race, those who would demonize the plaintiffs’ bar have some spare time on their hands -- enough time, apparently, to watch some television.

And so a pro-business trade group in Washington is wringing its hands over “Eli Stone,” a show that premieres on ABC tonight.

“Eli Stone” concerns a shark-like corporate defense attorney who only cares about two things: money and well, he can’t remember the second thing. But he begins having visions (of pop singer George Michael, for one, someone you usually need to travel to a county fair in the summer to see) which slowly convince him that he was put on this Earth to help others. It sends him off on a spiritual quest – to represent ordinary people against the very corporations he once defended.

(By the way, that’s not as preposterous as you would think. Many refugees of large corporate law firms will joke that they are “recovering” human beings.)

So, if you are keeping score at home, this means: Ordinary people = good, corporations = bad.

This does not sit well with the American Tort Reform Association. It, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics, is complaining that a plotline in the show – Stone represents a mother who believes a vaccine caused her child to become autistic – is misleading.

In a statement yesterday, the association’s president, Sherman “Tiger” Joyce, said the show “has the potential to scare millions of parents away from having their children properly vaccinated against dangerous diseases.”

Joyce cited a report from the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest’s, which “offers case studies of real-life personal injury lawyers endangering public health by disseminating unfounded information that convinces some people to avoid drugs or other medical treatments that could improve their health or even save their lives. Now, Hollywood’s latest make-believe lawyer is getting in on the act, too.”

Tribune television writer Maureen Ryan reports on her blog that ABC will run a disclaimer before the vaccine episode.

The tort reform association also took issue with a recent episode of “Law & Order” involving a pair of dry-cleaned pants (ripped from the headlines of a similar case in D.C. last year). Joyce said:

“The storyline on NBC’s "Law & Order" two weeks ago began promisingly enough when homicide detectives’ suspicions were raised by a guy suing his dry cleaners for $20 million over a lost pair of pants. But almost immediately, the focus shifted to big, bad corporate executives at a giant retail discounter who not only knowingly distributed tainted toothpaste from China but also helped an adulterous colleague, the real murderer, cover up his crime.”

Fortunately for the association, “Eli Stone”’s premiere is likely to overshadowed by the return of “Lost.” Then again, the mysterious Hanso Corp. seems to have some role in the mysterious Dharma research project on the mysterious island, so perhaps there will be no pleasing it.

(And, since we’ve mentioned “Lost,” who the heck was in that coffin anyway?)