Email Icon Twitter Icon Facebook Icon Youtube Icon

About Us

The Manufacturers’ Accountability Project (MAP) is a project of the NAM Legal Center—the leading voice of manufacturers in the courts fighting to advance policy objectives and advocate for strategic manufacturing interests. The NAM Legal Center is the legal arm of the National Association of Manufacturers, the largest manufacturing association in the United States, representing small and large manufacturers in every industrial sector and in all 50 states.

The NAM Legal Center launched MAP to bring attention to and push back on efforts to transform social, political and environmental public policy matters into state court public nuisance and consumer protection lawsuits targeting manufacturers.  These lawsuits seek to bypass the legislative and regulatory processes by placing public policy issues into the hands of courts, turning these complex matters into headline–and potentially profit-making–litigation. The lawsuits are structured to enrich the plaintiffs’ lawyers who successfully lobby state and local governments to hire them to bring such suits on their behalf but would do little to solve the underlying problems they purport to address. This troubling litigation model has been employed to target a variety of public policy matters and manufacturing sectors over time, including the recent spate of lawsuits seeking to transform the very complex issue of climate change into state court lawsuits. 

The MAP is actively engaged in the national debate over these lawsuits on behalf of the manufacturing community. We brief reporters, participate on panels and publish papers on developments in the cases. The MAP also works with its manufacturing partners and other allies around the country who similarly oppose this type of litigation.