T.C. Morrison

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Author Bio

Thomas Morrison, writing under the name T.C.Morrison, is a graduate of Otterbein University (Ohio) and New York University Law School where he was a Root-Tilden Scholar.  After four years of active duty as a legal officer in the United States Air Force, Morrison joined the New York City law firm Rogers & Wells where he became a partner in 1975.  In 1977 he moved to Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler where he spent the next 34 years trying cases and arguing appeals throughout the country.   Morrison helped Patterson Belknap pioneer the field of false advertising, whereby national advertisers can sue their competitors for advertising that is false or unsubstantiated.  Many of his cases in this field, as well as the field of trademark and trade dress infringement, have become landmarks.  Morrison spent the final five years of his 50-year career as a partner in the New York office of Manatt Phelps & Phillips.

Shortly before he retired, Morrison began writing a comic novel about modern day litigators and the cases they bring.  Believing that most attorneys take themselves and their cases much too seriously, and that there is much humor to be found in modern litigation,  Morrison set out to write a legal farce that captures some of the humor and absurdity in modern litigation, particularly class action litigation.

All of the cases that appear in the book have their genesis in actual court cases.  A few even had their inspiration in the author’s own trials.  Alas, the farcical courtroom testimony, dialogue and antics that appear throughout the book will not be found in any official reports in the annals of justice.

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“T.C. Morrison has written a profound and insightful book about lawyers.  It made me realize that instead of representing the likes of Marcus Calius Rufus and Publius Clodius Pulcher in their petty disputes with fellow aristocrats, I should have been bringing class actions on behalf of gladiators, slaves and other Roman rabble.  I would have been more famous than Caesar and Pompey combined.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

“T.C. Morrison’s important book shows once again that anything the British can do the Americans can do better.  We may have invented the Common Law but American lawyers have, with the clever invention of class action lawsuits, taken it to a whole new level.  Why couldn’t one of our illustrious barristers have thought of this?  As a result of this magnificent book, I shall devote the remainder of my career to seeing that British law recognizes – and, indeed, encourages - class action lawsuits.”

Horace Rumpole