Wednesday Apr 29, 2026
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
POWERHOUSE Arena
28 Adams Street (Corner of Adams & Water Street across from the Archway)
Brooklyn , NY
11201
About the Book.
Selling the Dream meets Empire of Pain in this shocking, never-told-before story of three women caught in a web of telemarketing scammers, shady doctors, and profit-hungry lawyers who turned fears surrounding a faulty medical device affecting millions of women into a goldmine.
For decades, late-night television has blared a familiar refrain: If you or a loved one has been injured by X product…
But behind those ads lies a lesser-known world where elaborate scams revictimize the injured. Why else would thousands of women with health insurance take out loans with astronomical interest rates and fly to south Florida to have their pelvic mesh surgically removed at a chiropractor’s clinic?
The Pain Brokers, by law professor Elizabeth Burch, is a damning investigation of a scheme made possible by a medical and legal complex that too often views women’s bodies as cash machines and fails to take their pain seriously.
As Burch unfurls each level to the scheme, we meet an enthralling cast of characters, from a world class scam artist who reaped tens of millions of dollars at a south Florida call center, to the ultimate white shoe power lawyer who defended Big Pharma but became an unlikely hero, to a newly minted small-town Arkansas attorney who advocated for the unseen and unheard. But at the center are three women, Jerri, Barb, and Sharon, whose lives were upended by the very procedure they were told would save them.
A page-turning, urgently necessary work of public service journalism, The Pain Brokers is not only a chilling exposé of a legal system gone awry, but a wake-up call to the ways in which it harms those it is meant to help.
About the Author.
Elizabeth Chamblee Burch is an award-winning scholar and the Fuller E. Callaway Chair of Law at the University of Georgia School of Law. A prolific author on mass tort lawsuits, she is also a frequent commentator in national news media such as NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, USA TODAY, and the Los Angeles Times.
About the Moderator.
Corey Stern is a nationally recognized trial attorney specializing in children’s rights and environmental justice, with a particular focus on lead poisoning and sexual abuse cases. He currently represents more than 4,000 children in Flint, Michigan, and nearly 3,000 in Jackson, Mississippi, who were poisoned by contaminated water systems, and in 2020 helped secure a historic $600 million settlement with the State of Michigan—the largest in state history—ensuring the majority of funds went to the youngest and most vulnerable victims. He has also brought landmark litigation against the New York City Housing Authority for widespread lead-based paint failures and represents thousands of survivors of sexual abuse in juvenile detention facilities and prisons nationwide. A University of Georgia graduate who earned both his undergraduate degree in history and his Juris Doctor there, Corey practiced in Atlanta for twelve years before returning to New York in 2014, where he continues his work holding powerful institutions accountable and fighting for individuals—especially children—who lack an adequate voice.