Litigation Gone Wild

[jazz4cash]

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigNick Many Europeans seem to have believe view that Americans are always suing each other for stupid things like this and winning. This is made even worse when a jury on crack sometimes actually finds for the plaintiff in one of these crazy cases, even though 99% of the time this gets corrected on appeal.

We had an issue come up recently that we discussed with several attorneys. Every attorney spontaneously mentioned something to the effect that "cases like this don't come along under the British system because the loser must pay legal expense for both parties" (e.g. much higher risk for plaintiff to bring a frivolous suit)

[donheff]

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Originally Posted by jazz4cash We had an issue come up recently that we discussed with several attorneys. Every attorney spontaneously mentioned something to the effect that "cases like this don't come along under the British system because the loser must pay legal expense for both parties" (e.g. much higher risk for plaintiff to bring a frivolous suit)

How do they determine rates? If the rates awarded are based on some standardized evaluation of what an individual would prudently spend on an attorney not including investigators etc this seems reasonable. If an individual would potentially face reimbursing a corporation's army of top flight litigators, then it would seem stacked.

[Purron]

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Originally Posted by HFWR What's this button do?

YouTube - Dr. Strangelove

[youbet]

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Originally Posted by MichaelB There are lawyers, and there are the people that hire them. Blaming the lawyer is like shooting the messenger.

Sounds just like pro-gun arguments from the NRA!

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

[youbet]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SunsetSail +1 Lawyers don't sue people, people sue people. Treat the cause, not the symptom.

Does that apply to the thousands of ambulance chasing attornies here in the Chicago area? When I was rear-ended by a bus on the Kennedy Expressway several years ago, two (yes, count 'em, two!) different attornies pulled over and interrupted the police interview to give me their cards and encourage me to call them to arrange to have them represent me in order to get the best settlement.

Yep, I was able to make up my own mind and not sue. But it was the attornies, not me, who did the initial push for a lawsuit.

Even their commercials on local TV bear this out. It's common to see a law firm advertising that they'll get you top dollar and that no issue is too trivial for them to consider and could result in you getting a big settlement.

[jazz4cash]

Quote:

Originally Posted by donheff How do they determine rates? If the rates awarded are based on some standardized evaluation of what an individual would prudently spend on an attorney not including investigators etc this seems reasonable. If an individual would potentially face reimbursing a corporation's army of top flight litigators, then it would seem stacked.

I have no idea whatsoever how rates are determined. I would imagine an authority would have to approve the fees to be paid. When the comment was made spontaneously by the 3rd lawyer in succession, it really got our attention. It was like they were apologizing for having to charge us for thier services because the action was so ridiculous.