Millionaires Against Billionaires: The Rise and Fall of the Private Plaintiff Antitrust Lawyer, 1946–1976

Abstract

Abstract This article traces the emergence of private plaintiff antitrust lawyers after World War II and the debates they caused within the legal profession. Private enforcement of antitrust laws increased throughout the 1940s, especially following on government suits that proved conspiracy and price-fixing within major industries. The lawyers behind these cases—most notably after a major price-fixing scandal by electrical manufacturing companies in the 1960s—began to form their own identity and create collaborative networks to work on complex litigation. These attorneys advocated for changes by Congress that could expand the number of lawyers and increase opportunities for small businesses to find representation against the often large corporate defense counsels. But this sudden expansion, as well as the moral panic over new class action laws, created a perception that most plaintiff antitrust lawyers conjured up cases to enrich themselves over their clients. Soon, these debates shifted toward issues of ethics rather than the laws themselves. By the time the Chicago School transformed the way judges and the government approached antitrust, the private plaintiff lawyers found themselves increasingly assisting only a few well-funded clients. As a new age of populist antitrust takes shape in the present, this article investigates the debates that fueled the transformation of access to antitrust law within the context of the rights revolution.