Our jury system has been under assault from an ever-growing tidal wave of improper trial tactics that have no place in our court rooms, but have directly triggered the last decade's cascade of nuclear verdicts.[1] These tactics began two decades ago, but mushroomed into prominence in 2009, when, in a remarkably successful marketing scheme in the form of a book, they were re-branded as the "Reptile Theory".[2] While the so called Reptile book (now selling on Amazon in paperback for $1,683.99) is not the only how-to or Bible for these tactics, its vivid imagery stands out in the forefront, making it the byname and catchall for this breed of improper tactics. In keeping with the plaintiff bar's apparent rejection of mammalian trademarks, from this point onward we will refer to the entire swath of these improper tactics as the "Snake Attack Phenomenon" or "Snake Attacks" (except when specifically discussing a reptile-based item). We call it a phenomenon simply because of the remarkable fact that it should never have existed in the first place.

In a nutshell, the Snake Attack Phenomenon is this: enterprising members of the personal injury bar took a variety of tactics and themes designed to poison the sanctity of the jury box with improper and punitive considerations that courts had long precluded from the courthouse—on the combined bases of relevancy and prejudice—and successfully re-marketed and re-branded many of them with a new pseudo-scientific label to provide them with an unwarranted patina of propriety. Even more importantly, this brilliant re-marketing phenomenon was formalized and undertaken in plain sight in a 2009 how-to booklet,[3] along with subsequent seminars and pamphlets, published to (a) maintain the pretext of legitimacy, and (b) ensure that it would be available to, and utilized by, plaintiff attorneys nationwide.