While lawyers play a role in every aspect of american public life, it's seldom that they become a subject of public debate themselves. The one glaring exception is the plaintiffs bar, which, depending on the propagandist we listen to, consists either of the lawyers whom injured Americans love or the lawyers whom litigation-weary Americans love to hate. Are they vultures? Paladins? Or, a bit of both?

To cut through the noisy and distracting chatter, we set out to look at the plaintiffs bar using the one criterion that all sides agree they meet: as businesses. For almost two decades we have reported on the finances of the corporate defense bar firms that fill The Am Law 100. In this supplement, we publish the results of our first effort to pierce the finances of the plaintiffs bar with a list of the 16 plaintiffs firms with the largest gross revenues in 2003. The numbers are substantial--we set the minimum at $50 million--but a bit short of the eye-popping headline numbers that are often bandied about in public discussions. We found more than one business model for these enormously successful--and for the most part rather small--institutions. And we explored two in depth. One is New York's Weitz & Luxenberg, which started as a small shop with a large asbestos case and has grown into a national mass tort powerhouse ("A Well-Oiled Machine,"). The other is Reaud, Morgan & Quinn of Beaumont, Texas, a 13-lawyer firm that built a mighty practice out of shipyard injuries, a friendly local jury pool, and the personal magnetism of one partner ("Wayne Reaud's Higher Power," page 22 in the print edition).

These 16 firms and another dozen or so who play in the same league but didn't make last year's financial cut drive litigation in America. They are powerful political players. They have vested interests to protect. Individually they are supremely confident; collectively they often feel besieged. And, as it happens, their work keeps the corporate defense establishment gainfully employed.

In our report, we also look at the jurisdictions--alternately damned or fabled--where the plaintiffs bar's largest victories have been scored. How did Madison County, Illinois, become as famous for litigation as for its namesake bridges ("Madison County's Litigation Factory")? We look at the latest turn in the securities class action wars, the massive Citigroup settlement, a particular branch of high-stakes litigation that Congress can swat but not suffocate ("Taking Citi to School," page 44). And we examine how technology has changed the way plaintiffs run their cases.

This supplement will be mailed with both Corporate Counsel, our monthly magazine that covers the world of in-house lawyers. We're interested in your views on the subject. Please contact me at apress@amlaw.com.