Elizabeth Chamblee Birch

Elizabeth Chamblee Birch joins me today on Writers at Work. She is the author of THE PAIN BROKERS: HOW CON MEN, CALL CENTERS, AND ROGUE DOCTORS FUEL AMERICA'S LAWSUIT FACTORY. It's Elizabeth's first book, but not the first time she's written on legal matters in such a way that can fascinate laymen. Her thoughts on mass tort lawsuits have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and on National Public Radio. She is the Fuller E. Callaway Chair of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. For the uninitiated, such as myself, a mass tort is a civil action involving numerous plaintiffs against one or a few defendants in a state or federal court. In THE PAIN BROKERS, Elizabeth writes of a scheme by the medical and legal industrial complex that exploits a view that women's bodies are commodities, and their pain not a major concern. She does so by telling us about Geri Plummer, Barb Shepherd, and Sharon Gore, who are among the thousands of women tempted by deceitful telemarketers, who flew to Florida to undergo surgical procedures, setting off a flood of millions of insurance dollars to white-shoe lawyers, doctors, and unscrupulous con artists. What became of Geri, Barb, and Sharon? Elizabeth tells us that and more.