Lawsuit! is a Game to NY Lawyer
Tina Eskreis Nelson’s job as an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law is now history. That’s because the mother of three came up with a unique way in 2003 of explaining to her then 6-year-old son what his parents, both lawyers, are trained to do.
She stopped dead on the street one day, as a scenario came to mind: “Your client, a clown, was hurt when a child at a party squeezed his big red nose too hard. He’s been disabled ever since. Collect $2,000 in worker’s compensation benefits,” recounts New York Lawyer (reg. req.) in a reprint of a New York Law Journal article.
Now her patented board game, Lawsuit! is a brisk seller at venues including the FAO Schwarz toy store on New York City’s Fifth Avenue; the U.S. Supreme Court gift shop in Washington, D.C.; and the National Judicial College in Reno, Nev. The game, which takes players through three stages—lawsuit, settlement and appeal—won Creative Child magazine’s game of the year award in July.
Although she initially intended Lawsuit! just for her own family, “The kids enjoyed playing it, and showed it to their friends and then their friends’ parents saw it and pretty soon everybody kept saying, ‘Oh, this is great. You ought to try marketing the game,’ ” says Nelson. She is thrilled with the game’s success, she says—and is working on a new idea that involves cards.
The ABA Journal wrote about this board game in April 2007.
(Updated 09-10-07 at 11 a.m. CST)
