A Federal law authorizes judges to "request" an attorney to represent indigent civil plaintiffs.

"What impartiality can you boast of when the executioner of this war is a civil plaintiff and a victim in your eyes?"

They also acted for civil plaintiffs in suits against insurance companies and other large corporations.

Unicef, which is a civil plaintiff, estimates some two million children are pressed into prostitution, including 400,000 in Thailand.

Most numerous, sitting in tiers in the courtroom, are some 40 lawyers representing 110 civil plaintiffs in the case.

Sarkozy has the status of a civil plaintiff in the case.

In that moment he switched sides, he says, and from then on he represented only civil plaintiffs and criminal defendants.

"Father Geoghan told the children to keep it secret," said Mitchell Garabedian, the lawyer for most of the civil plaintiffs.

Lawyers for civil plaintiffs stormed out of the court, some vowing never to return.

It is an indignity for civil plaintiffs.