Because I cannot log into the study and because the abstract is pretty equivocal and because we are talking about the United States (and since your evidence is posters SDMB thread–the large majority of whom are American–and American lawyer jokes, let’s agree your intended population of interest was Americans) while the study covers Americans, English, Scots, Australians, and Germans, I did not address it since I can’t tell if it suggests that American law students have that opinion (can you?) and, at any rate, it is of questionable relevance.
I remember thinking that at the time, and wondering if their lawyers were milking the clock too. On the other hand, our lawyers were very agressive with telling me not to answer questions that were phrased the way you just illustrated, saying that they were asking me to be speculative. Since these were my employer’s lawyers, and my job was on the line, I was going to defer to them, unless they asked me to do outright lie in the deposition.
Yes. I am sure I was being quite reasonable and he was not. He found that a small but crucial part of my driveway was on his property (the part that met the street). He wanted me to pay him tens of thousands of dollars for an easement. Since the driveway had been there for 23 years before either of us bought the houses, I did not think his demand very reasonable.
Well, OK, except you stated this exchange occurred hours into the deposition:
Based upon this exchange, had deposing attorney asked you early in the deposition if you had formed any conclusions whatsoever that x was fired for y, I assume you would have said yes. Then, if the attorney followed up asked you about the bases for your conclusion, you would have said your conclusion was based upon the fact that, on date xx-xx-xxxx, the same day employee x was fired, manager z told you that you would be fired if you did y, and immediately after, you were told that employee x was fired.
“We found that in most of the countries the 1Ls had quite low opinions about whether lawyers were honorable, sometimes even lower than the opinions held by the general public.”
This is equivocal? It is to laugh. Look, just go away. Everyone else is able to agree on the premise, and you’re being a jerk in what could be an interesting thread. Find another thread to obsess about.
I don’t do PI, but it would be interesting to know where this disdain for the practice area came from and how it came to be known as “ambulance chasing.” My WAG is, if you tracked it down to Patient Zero, so to speak, you would be staring at an insurance company lobbyist.
My point is this: Everybody seems to take, unreflectingly, that having a lawyer approach you soon after an accident is the worst thing in the world. Now, I know being in an accident is stressful, but nobody objects to the duty to notify your insurer promptly after an accident, nobody asks the hospital to hold off on billing until you’ve gotten back into a routine, etc. etc.
I know these aren’t identical considerations. But having done legal work for the poor, many legal rights will go unenforced unless you do go to the client. This is not to say there’s never been an inappropriate hard sell by an attorney. But, those who point to “ambulance chasing” without more should have to explain (1) whether they have actually witnessed such behavior, and (2) whose interest they think such rules end up serving.
This link seems to suggest the term (ambulance chaser) goes back to the late 1800’s. No clue if that is reliable or not though.
It is not that people in accidents should not seek legal help. It is more that a lot of attorneys seeking to make a living have made the US a litigious society. These days if something bad happens then someone must be at fault and must pay. Gone is the notion that sometimes shit just happens. Some accidents really are just accidents.
Worse, so much of it seems premised on it being cheaper to payout a settlement than to defend yourself from bullshit lawsuits. Assume you really are innocent of causing an accident but you get sued anyway. The opposing side is seeking $20,000 in damages. You talk to your lawyer and she informs you that if you want to fight it then it will likely cost you $50,000. Which do you choose?
Also, I have a vague memory that lawyers were getting so aggressive in seeking clients who had been injured that cases were occurring that the first a family heard of a loved one’s death was from an attorney calling seeking to represent them. Pretty sure there are laws now that put some buffer in there to allow the family to be notified more appropriately and get at least a modicum of grieving in. I presume if they want though they can call an attorney ASAP if they are so inclined.
Yet this gets blamed on the lawyers, not on the real culprit - the insurance companies. PI lawyers work overwhelmingly on contingency. They don’t win, they don’t eat. If insurance companies really wanted to stop “frivolous lawsuits” they would fight them. Yes it would cost more, in the short run, but contingency lawyers would stop filing cases where there was little to no evidence if they knew they would have to go to the expense of taking them to court, and ending up with nothing. The long term gains to the insurance companies, if there were these masses of frivilous claims, would be vast.
But in the end, the insurance company doesn’t care. They just pay the settlements, and hike premiums. And they have the advantage of blaming the nasty lawyers for the increase in cost. And apparently sufficient gullible people to believe them.
I think the problem is who can outlast whom? I am sure the insurance company is not so blind to not consider a fight such as you propose. But there are thousands or tens of thousands of PI attorneys out there, all needing to eat. If the insurance companies fight the PIs will fight back to establish “you are better just paying up”. They have to or most are out a job.
So, say 1,000 PI attorneys filing one claim a week. The insurance company must solo fight 52,000 court cases in one year. If we go with a rather cheap estimate of just $10,000 per case for them to litigate all the way through they are out $520,000,000 in one year…and that assumes they win every single case. How long will it take to clear out the PIs to more reasonable levels? A few years?
In short the math just doesn’t work for them so they pay up. The PIs know it and depend on it.
They aren’t blind. They don’t care. They just raise premiums, and blame the nasty lawyers. Or get their friends to cap tort damages, so a doctor can leave a new born paralyzed for life, needing 24/7 medical care, and the family can only receive $2 million.
I think the pockets of the insurance companies are just a trifle deeper than those of the PI lawyer.
It’s your math that doesn’t add up. How is a PI lawyer going to file, let alone fight, a case a week? Filing it might work if you know you don’t have to fight it. But the time table you put forward isn’t practical whatsoever.
A more reasonable explanation for the insurance companies behavior is that they know they would lose a significant percentage of the claims (doctors leave scalpels and pads inside people way more often than they should), and they don’t want to spend the time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
In any case, the blame rests on the insurance company, not the attorney.
I am on the fence with this. There are many cases of huge judgments that seemed to make little sense. And there are cases where a huge judgment seems merited and the injured person gets nothing.
That system is messed up and seems to have perverse results for both sides.
No doubt. But a PI only needs to file a handful of cases. The insurance company must defend the combined effect of all the PI attorneys out there by itself.
It was just an illustration. There are probably more than 1,000 PI attorneys out there too.
Also remember the $10,000/case is likely a very lowballed number. Also remember all the business disruption that would occur if an insurance company had to litigate thousands of cases simultaneously. It is not just hiring all those attorneys…it is the landslide of paperwork and so on that would bury them.
Well, if the doctor (or whatever) really did screrw up I’d hope they’d just payup.
I’d ask you to take a deeper look at the cases where there are “huge judgments that seemed to make little sense.” Were the cases overturned on appeal? Were there reasons for the damages explained which the press doesn’t pick up on (McDonald’s coffee, for example). Were the damages reduced by remittitur?
Just remember that “Crazy legal system hands out millions in lottery” is a much better headline than “Legal system works and disproportional award reduced by judge.”
Without looking I suspect that the real damage is done by nickle-and-diming to death.
Sure we hear about the BIG ones but they are relatively uncommon. It is the thousands of payments of $10,000 or $50,000 that I expect really add up.
Of course in the end it is us who pays the PI attorneys since the insurance companies, as noted, raise premiums which are eventually reflected in the cost of most everything we do.
I can’t decide if I’m laughing so hard I’m crying, or crying so hard I’m laughing, after reading this. So your brilliant idea is that doctors would personally pay out of their own pocket?
BTW, juries, not lawyers, decide what the monetary value of a damage award should be.
I think this touches on the true issue. I’d say a lot of people like to pile on the hate on lawyers because they don’t really believe that all citizens have a right to a fair trial and are considered innocent until proven guilty by a jury of their peers.
I think the real issue is the whole legal system…it is archaic, inefficient, and slow. Also, it is rigged against the ordinary citizen; the lawyers speak an arcane, archaic language, and the proceedings move at the whim of the judges. Also, the lawyer has no moral responsibility-he can hide behind the statement “that’s what my client TOLD me what happened”. As long as the client says so, his lawyer has no requirement to investigate these claims. Which is why we have people getting disability pensions, who are found later, lugging 50 pound bundles of shingles, onto the roofs of houses.
Question: do people have to pay back pension money, which they obtained via a fraudulent claim?
I merely meant that there are times when the doctor (or whoever) know they fucked up (e.g. left a sponge in the patient) and I would hope that whoever is supposed to pay damages doesn’t bother with a long, drawn out court case trying to pretend they did nothing wrong.
Certainly there are plenty of times where a court case is merited since it is not at all clear just how culpable someone is but often enough there are times where the negligent person knows damn well they fucked up.
Is that always true? I thought that could change but I do not know.