"Perhaps America's leading authority on over-litigation". That's what Investor's Business Daily has called Walter Olson, whose books and writings have helped set the terms of debate about the excesses of the nation's civil justice system.  Olson's book The Litigation Explosion was reviewed favorably in the New York Times by the late Chief Justice Warren Burger and subsequently cited by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in a major Supreme Court opinion; the Washington Post dubbed Olson an "intellectual guru of tort reform". The Excuse Factory, his book on litigation in the workplace, was met with accolades everywhere from The American Lawyer ("engaging, witty and provocative") and the London Times ("riveting") to the A.B.A. Journal ("wittily scathing") and The American Spectator ("devastating and eloquent"). His new book The Rule of Lawyers has already been hailed in the American Lawyer as "wry, amusing" as well as "provocative and enjoyable".

A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, the think tank in New York City, Mr. Olson is a frequent contributor to the magazine Reason, and his writing appears regularly in such publications as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He has appeared numerous times before Congress, federal agencies and state lawmakers and has approximately 300 broadcast appearances under his belt, including "Crossfire", "MacNeil-Lehrer", "Oprah", "Donahue", and NPR. His website Overlawyered.com, launched in 1999, has won wide acclaim for its mix of entertaining and serious commentary.

Before joining the Manhattan Institute in 1985 he spent five years with the American Enterprise Institute, and worked before that on Capitol Hill. He speaks regularly before professional, business and student audiences. A Yale graduate, he resides in the New York area.

NEW! PointofLaw.com, a webmagazine that brings together information and opinion on the U.S. litigation system

Select Media

• KXL's "The Lars Larson Show", 1-11-10
• WTIC's "The Ray Dunaway Show", 1-8-10
• KOA's "The Mike Rosen Show", 12-22-09
• WTIC "Mornings With Ray Dunaway", 9-25-09
• WSBA's "York Morning News", 7-15-09
• WTAM's "The Wills and Snyder Show", 7-15-09
• KTRH's "Morning News with Lana Hughes and JP Pritchard", 7-15-09
• WHJJ's "The Helen Glover Show", 7-15-09
• KPAY's "The Morning News And More with Matt Ray and Kelly Sanchez", 7-15-09
• WTIC's "The Jim Vicevich Show", 7-14-09
• Salem Radio Network's "The Hugh Hewitt Show", 3-18-09. To listen to a podcast of the segment, click here.
• WMJI's "Lanigan & Malone Morning Show", 3-4-09
• CNN Headline News' "Glenn Beck Show," 10-11-07. To watch a clip of this television appearance, please click here.
• Fox News Channel's "Fox News Live," 10-09-07. To watch a clip of this appearance, please click here.

Articles/Op-eds

• Spano's 'Suicide', New York Post, 11-07-09
• A Destructive Toy Story Made in Washington, Wall Street Journal, 09-13-09
• Inside The Health Care Bill, Forbes.com, 07-22-09
• Court: Discriminate -- With Discretion, New York Post, 06-30-09
• Sued If You Do, Sued If You Don't, Forbes.com, 06-29-09
• Obama's 'Wise Latina', Forbes.com, 05-26-09
• Replacing Justice Souter, Reason, 05-21-09
• The New York Times Betrays Small Business, Forbes.com, 02-18-09
• How The CPSIA Wreaks Havoc In Every State, Forbes.com, 02-09-09
• Distillation Without Taxation, The New York Times, 02-06-09
• Scrap The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act--II, Forbes.com, 01-29-09
• Scrap The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, Forbes.com, 01-16-09
• Dangerous Kook At The EPA?, Forbes.com, 11-07-08
• Slavery Reparations: What Happened?, Los Angeles Times, 10-31-08
• The Rebuttal, Conde Nast Portfolio, 07-21-08
• Saving Spitzer, National Review Online, 03-11-08
• Mississippi's Tort King, Wall Street Journal, 12-15-07
• Hofstra Hosts a Terror Fan, New York Post, 10-05-07
• The Great American Pants Suit, Wall Street Journal, 06-18-07
• Tort Travesty, Wall Street Journal, 05-18-07
• Could Less Rigid Privacy Laws Have Prevented the Virginia Tragedy?, Times Online, 04-20-07
• Revisit Current Laws and Regulations, Washington Post, 04-19-07
• Product Labels Have Come Unglued From Reality, Dallas Morning News, 03-25-07
• Trial Lawyers Not Trounced Yet, Chicago Tribune, 03-20-07
• Business Has Not Trounced the Trial Lawyers Just Yet, Times Online, 03-12-07
• Warning: This Column Might Give You Something to Think About, The American, 03-06-07
• Dangerous When in Power, Reason, 03-01-07
• Keep Your Children Away From Open Flames, Times Online, 01-28-07
• US Markets Must 'Learn From London', Times Online, 12-01-06
• The US Election: How Did the Lawyers Fare?, Times Online, 11-09-06
• Reforming the Right, New York Post, 11-05-06
• If the US Experience Is Anything To Go By, Be Sceptical of Britain's New Age-Bias Laws, Times Online, 10-18-06
• BlackBerry Suits, Times Online, 09-18-06
• Insurers Can Breathe Easier Over Katrina Lawsuits, Times Online, 08-30-06
• US Sheds Few Tears For Carruthers, Times Online, 08-07-06
• Rumpelstiltskin, LLP, Wall Street Journal, 07-29-06
• Teens, Sex and MySpace, Times Online, 07-18-06
• N.Y. Judge Wars: Hidden '06 Issue, New York Post, 06-30-06
• The Long, Long, Long Goodbye, Times Online, 06-27-06
• Lawsuit Heaven -- NYC's Hell, New York Post, 06-15-06
• Inside Milberg's Credenza, Wall Street Journal, 05-22-06
• My Kingdom for a Casino, Forbes, 05-08-06
• First Smokes, Now Cokes, Los Angeles Times, 02-02-06
• Lawsuit Reform in Washington, Wall Street Journal, 12-24-05
• New York Times Book Review: 'J. Anthony Froude': That's Froude, Not Freud, The New York Times, 10-16-05
• Katrina Ravages Mississippi -- Contracts Badly Hit, Wall Street Journal, 09-24-05
• Justice Served, Sometimes, Wall Street Journal, 09-08-05
• The Next Sandra Day, Wall Street Journal, 07-07-05
• This Land Is My Land, The New York Times, 06-26-05
• A Little Crazy, New York Post, 03-27-05
• The Wrong Target, The New York Times, 02-06-05
• Thomas' Trials and Triumph, New York Post, 12-19-04
• Stop the Shakedown, Wall Street Journal, 10-29-04
• Crimes of Ego, New York Post, 10-17-04
• Symbolism 1, Substance 0, Wall Street Journal, 08-23-04
• Edwards & Co., Wall Street Journal, 07-12-04
• Kerry's Crafty Operator, The New York Sun, 07-07-04
• More Punitives to the People!, Wall Street Journal, 06-02-04
• Privacy First, New York Post, 04-18-04
• The Threat from Lawyers is No Joke, Imprimis, 03-15-04
• You May Already Be a Loser, Reason, 12-08-03
• Shut Up! Or I’ll Sue, New York Post, 12-07-03
• Spamifornia, Wall Street Journal, 12-03-03
• The Shakedown State, Wall Street Journal, 07-22-03
• Spitzer's Nuisance, The New York Sun, 06-30-03
• Silver's Wreck, New York Post, 06-09-03
• A Spanking for the Trial Lawyers, Wall Street Journal, 05-23-03
• The Lawsuit Lobby, San Francisco Examiner, 04-15-03
• Gun Lawsuit Meets Activist Judge, The New York Sun, 03-26-03
• Delivering Justice, Wall Street Journal, 02-27-03
• Courting Stupidity, Reason, 01-15-03
• Legal Payola, New York Post, 11-21-02
• Indian Claims Debacle Offers a Sobering Preview on Reparations, The New York Sun, 10-29-02
• Nanny Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, 10-22-02
• Supreme Court Rescues ADA From Its Zealots, Wall Street Journal, 06-18-02
• Osama, The Pigs & The Kennedy, New York Post, 04-17-02
• A Wink Too Far, National Review Online, 04-03-02
• Not All Liberals Love Lawsuits, OpinionJournal.com, 08-14-00
• Plaintiffs Lawyers Take Aim at Democracy, Wall Street Journal, 03-21-00
• A Microsoft Suit With a Sure Winner, The New York Times, 11-23-99
• The Florida Tobacco Jurors: Anything but Typical, Wall Street Journal, 06-12-99
• Under the ADA, We May All Be Disabled, Wall Street Journal, 05-17-99
• Hollywood vs. the Truth, Wall Street Journal, 12-23-98
• In the Land of the ADA, the One-Eyed Man Is King, Wall Street Journal, 06-22-98
• Have the Harassment Rules Changed?, Wall Street Journal, 04-06-98
• Punch the Clock, Sue the Boss, The New York Times, 03-20-98
• ------------------------------------------------------
• Walter Olson’s Reason columns

Testimony

• Comments submitted to the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law (April 2, 2003)

Books

• The Rule of Lawyers: How the New Litigation Elite Threatens America's Rule of Law (Truman Talley Books/St. Martin's, January 2003)
  Named one of the top ten books for 2003 in non-fiction by Metro Magazine 
  Special Interview: The Rule of Lawyers. Senior fellow Walter Olson speaks with Fox News judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano and DaimlerChrysler assistant general counsel Steven Hantler about legal reform. (Windows Media Player) and (others) (January 2005). 
• The Excuse Factory: How Employment Law Is Paralyzing the American Workplace (The Free Press, June 1997)
• The Litigation Explosion: What Happened When America Unleashed the Lawsuit (Penguin Books, 1991)
• New Directions in Liability Law (Academy of Political Science, 1988)

City Journal articles

• Revolt in Westchester, 4 November 2009
• Where Did You Get That Keychain?, 16 October 2009
• The New Book Banning, 12 February 2009
• Windows on the Future?, 17 December 2008
• Reparations, R.I.P., Autumn 2008
• Forced to Be Civil?, 15 October 2008
• Get Sued, All Ye Faithful, Spring 2008
• Over the Edge, 5 October 2007
• Taking Cola to Court, Winter 2006
• The ADA Shakedown Racket, Winter 2004
• Give It Back to the Indians?, Autumn 2002
• Fixing the Civil Service Mess, Autumn 1997
• A Connecticut Yankee in Court, Autumn 1996
• Suing City Hall, Autumn 1994
• The New Chutzpah, Winter 1994
• Good Standing?, Autumn 1993
• At Law: Divorce Court New York Style, Spring 1993
• Sue City, Winter 1993
• Sue Thy Neighbor?, Spring 1991
• Around the Clock With Alternate-Side-of-the-Street Parking, Autumn 1990