John Grisham has given us “The Appeal” which deals with buying a legal outcome by financing an election of state appellate judges.   The US Supreme Court has heard oral argument on the issue.

Another ploy might be to pay law professors and have them write scholarly articles that you can cite to a court as objective neutral legal science.  In the issue of the Stanford Law Review that arrived yesterday, I found a student note:  Shireen A. Barday, Punitive Damages, Remunerated Research, and the Legal Profession, 61 Stan. L. Rev. 711 (2008).   Using WestLaw and the like, she has chased down all of the acknowledgments to Exxon — and others who do not want to pay for their sins — in law review articles in fancy journals by famous law  professors and economists.   She looks at what was cited to the court in the Exxon punitive damages case, and she looks at the court’s response — it doesn’t give you warm feelings about the integrity of the legal system.   Even if you draw a different normative judgment, the process is interesting and a little threatening.    Didn’t Gramsci talk about organic intellectuals?   As I recall, they were those who tried to influence opinion but were really controlled by the powerful.   Intellectuals who wore a collar attached to a leash — but there were  diamonds in the collar.  Or is it just the market?