Can you back up the claim that "frivolous lawsuits were common"? You hear those stories every once a while, but they make the news precisely because of their absurdity and uncommon nature. The most cited cases were actually not that frivolous if you look further into it (McDonalds intentionally served their coffee 50 degrees hotter than normal coffee and the plaintiff suffered third degree burns) or dismissed and the plaintiff and/or the attorney penalized.

In addition, according to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, attorneys must certified that the lawsuits they have "are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law or the establishment of new law". If they were found to violate this rule then "the court may impose an appropriate sanction on any attorney, law firm, or party that violated the rule or is responsible for the violation. Absent exceptional circumstances, a law firm must be held jointly responsible for a violation committed by its partner, associate, or employee".