Those who blame lawyers for the problems with medicine are looking in the wrong place. Its almost 100% the doctors' fault and here is why. Doctors are almost completely unaccountable for their mistakes. Sure they may lose a lawsuit but almost never their license. So their insurance rates go up - big deal. In the one in one hundred thousand chance they do have their license revoked - well they just go next door to the next state and get one there. (Unless convicted of a crime) Compare that for example to the case last week of the NorthWest pilots who did not kill or injure anyone but had their licenses lifted and most likely will never be airline pilots again. If doctors (who do kill and injure patients) were held to that standard no would be all that concerned with malpractice lawsuits. And yes it is a small % of doctors who are found responsible repeatedly in malpractice suits.