The movie's screenplay was in development for around five years and went through a reported twenty-five drafts of the script.
Coming from a documentary background, specifically with his "Up" series, Michael Apted was very keen to depict the legal process as accurately as possible.
A first screenplay by Samantha Shad who had previously been one of the first women working at a major Washington law firm.
The film was entered into and selected to screen in competition at the 17th Moscow International Film Festival in 1991.
The movie's storyline is based on the Ford Pinto legal case - the lawsuit of Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Company (119 Cal. App. 3d 757). Website Wikipedia states that this litigation was "a California case about the safety of the Ford Pinto car, manufactured by [the] Ford Motor Company with knowledge of design flaws that might lead to serious injury". Wikipedia defines a class action as "...a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member of that group. The class action originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, but several European countries with civil law, have made changes in recent years to allow consumer organizations to bring claims on behalf of consumers".