Lawyers hang out author shingle. (Perkins Coie publishes book on product liability)

Lawyers hang out author shingle

If the herd instinct infects law firms as much as it seems to with other industries, the larger firms are likely to follow Perkins Coie's new marketing lead.

Product liability lawyers at Perkins, the Northwest's largest law firm, recently published not a newsletter, not a pamphlet, not a manual--but a book, an 80-page primer on product liability for manufacturers and their employees.

The book, "Product Liability In The United States," seems remarkably unlawyerlike in its clarity and ease of reading as it walks the layman through the law and the courts.

It discusses product-liability legal theories, product defects--and who's liable for them. It escorts the reader through the various aspects of a lawsuit.

And it advises companies on how to cut the risk of a suit.

Unusual? "We couldn't find anything out there like this," said Perkins Seattle partner Keith …