Web site makes suing easy

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 15 (UPI) -- A new Web site promising to simplify the lawsuit process by pairing lawyers and potential litigants is a bad idea, tort reform advocates say.

Legal Newsline reported Tuesday that critics say the SueEasy Web site encourages people to be litigious.

Darren McKinney, spokesman for the American Tort Reform Association, said the site is the "latest distillation" of an attitude promoted by trial lawyers.

"It's an attitude that runs against personal responsibility and seems to promote the notion that whatever negative happens in your life somebody else can be blamed and thus sued," McKinney told Legal Newsline.

On its Web site, Mountain View, Calif.-based SueEasy says its "primary concern is for you to register a genuine complaint or grievance as quickly and as simply as possible."

Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute Center for Legal Policy, said he worries about the quality of lawyers that might cull an Internet site for potential clients.

"The main problem with this is quality control," Olson said. "If this were a dating service, you'd have to wonder -- whichever side of the dating you were on -- what kind of dunce are they going to bring me?"