“North Country,” Hollywood’s latest tribute to plaintiffs’ lawyers, tells the story of a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of female coal miners, led by the willowy Charlize Theron, who were sexually harassed by some male coworkers. In this typical David-and-Goliath legal battle, Lois Jenson (this year’s Erin Brockovich) brings the nation’s first class-action lawsuit based on sexual harassment and wins. The movie portrays plaintiffs’ lawyers – in this case class-action lawyers – as noble, altruistic, and selfless, while the defendant coal company is the epitome of evil, and male coworkers are sexist. The audience leaves the theater with the idealized image of class-action lawyers as the defenders of God, motherhood, and apple pie.

I understand that moviegoers want to see a film, not read a legal file, but the message Hollywood is sending with these stereotypical portrayals undermines the public’s interest in forcing changes in the dysfunctional class-action system. The company is always “bad,” the company’s lawyers are unethical, while the plaintiff coal miners are always sympathetic and their lawyers admirable.

Unlike the fictional “North Country”:

* Plaintiffs are almost never asked to join a class-action lawsuit. Rather, they are brigadooned into the case without their knowledge. Under our legal system, every female employee is a class member and part of the settlement unless she decides not to participate.

* An actual trial takes place in “North Country” complete with Perry Masonesque drama techniques, surprise witnesses, and a threatened fist fight in the courtroom. In reality, class actions are slow, document-driven monstrosities staffed by armies of lawyers to increase billable hours and peppered with hearings on procedural motions. In a typical class action, the fees of lawyers from both plaintiffs and defendants wind up costing consumers a lot more than the value of the questionable benefits that class members receive in settlement.

* After watching “North Country,” one would think that class-action lawsuits are the answer to many of society’s ills. Think again. Our class-action system is being abused by lawyers who line their pockets at the expense of their clients. Almost everyone has a story to tell about the useless coupons they received from a class-action settlement. To be sure, some class actions make positive changes in our country. But, the overwhelming majority of class actions are brought by lawyers for the benefit of lawyers. Clients are, at best, an afterthought.

* What the moviegoer never learns is how much money the lawyers were paid in comparison to what their coal miner clients received. Indeed, the most “North Country” would admit was that plaintiffs received an undisclosed “modest” settlement.

The movie does in passing mention that lawyers can take a large fee, leaving their clients with peanuts. But there is more truth in this brief observation about class actions than the entire 90 minutes of the film. When is Hollywood going to focus on the truth about class actions? That lawyers take advantage of our nation’s social problems to line their own pockets, while their clients, in this case harassed female coal miners, are a mere vehicle for lawyer greed.

I’m waiting for a Hollywood portrait of Tom Hanks as an idealistic class member who questions the terms of a class-action settlement and the amount of the attorneys’ fees, only to be confronted by vicious corporate and plaintiffs’ lawyers played, respectively, by Christopher Walken and Jack Nicholson. Don’t hold your breath. Sure, “North Country” is great publicity for the plaintiffs’ bar, but it is a fictional portrayal of the modern American class action that ignores the serious problem of the need for reform in order to focus on the juicer subject of the harassment of sexy Hollywood superstar Charlize Theron.

Mr. Schonbrun is the executive director of Class Action Watch, a non-profit foundation fighting abusive class action settlements and excessive lawyers’ fees and educating the general public on class actions (www.classactionwatch.org).