Conway had never met the families, and he could view the case in a cold, unemotional light. He had learned by then that Schlichtmann never did anything in half measures, and the full measure of Woburn—the size, the complexity and the cost—scared Conway. “We don’t want that one,” he would say when he and Schlichtmann went downstairs after work to the Emperor of China restaurant and discussed new cases.

Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action, loc. 305