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When Enough Is Never Enough.
We’d like to welcome you to this month’s issue
of the Lawyers Stink E-mail Newsletter. With any luck, you’re hopefully
enjoying a lawyer free day (although it’s getting tougher and tougher to
do these days). Today we’re going to spend a few minutes talking about
totally outrageous fees lawyers are asking for – and getting in lawsuits
around the country.
Lawyers typically get paid in one of two ways. They either charge their
clients an hourly rate or work off what is termed a contingent fee
arrangement. Let’s first take a look at the hourly rate arrangement.
The hourly rate charged by lawyers varies considerably, ranging from a
pedestrian $80 an hour (good luck finding one who’ll charge this low of a
rate) to more than $1,000 an hour. And that doesn’t even include the
expenses. Having a lawyer represent you, in even the simplest of lawsuits,
can set you back a couple of thousand easy. If the lawyer has to do any
real work at all, the legal fees can quickly reach ten thousand dollars or
more. And if you’re case goes all the way to trial, you’re probably
looking at taking out a second mortgage against your house to pay the
freight.
Being charged hundreds of dollars an hour is no walk in the park, to be
sure. But if you get smacked with a lawsuit, which is becoming all the
more likely with each passing hour, that’s exactly where you’ll find
yourself. Having to have a lawyer represent you in court is a ticket
straight to the poor house. The worst part of the deal, besides having to
deal with lawyers in the first place, is that the lawyer himself or
herself determines the number of hours worked in your behalf. Now that’s a
scary thought.
The one person who you justifiably trust the least – namely the lawyer –
is the one person you must trust to accurately determine the number of
hours he or she worked on your case. While there are honorable lawyers out
there who would never over bill their clients for time worked, you can bet
your bottom dollar (which may be the only dollar you have remaining after
the lawyer gets through with you) that there are thousands who wouldn’t
think twice about bilking you. And one of these rascals just might be your
lawyer.
What do you make an hour? $10, $20 or even $100 an hour? Maybe even a
little more – or a little less? Doesn’t paying anyone, even your plumber,
a couple of hundred dollars an hour chap your rear? Of course it does. But
lawyers don’t even flinch when they demand this kind of stratospheric
compensation from us.
So how does $30,000 or more an hour sound? You read that number correctly
-- $30,000 an hour. That’s what a number of class action lawyers pull down
– and even more! Is any job, anywhere, worth that kind of money? I guess
the answer to that question depends a great deal on who you ask.
Contingent fee lawyers, who take a percentage of any award or settlement
garnered in a lawsuit, regularly rake in that kind of hourly compensation
– and more. These jet setting trial lawyers make millions and on occasion
even billions of dollars on contingency fee based lawsuits.
By the way, calling these tycoons “trial” lawyers is something of a
misnomer, since they rarely take their cases to trial. Their modus
operandi is to take on massive, high profile class action lawsuits against
deep pocketed defendants and then proceed to extort a huge settlement
(click
class action update to check out the various class action lawsuits
around the country). The they coolly collect their 30% to 70% of the
action and go looking for the next dragon to slay.
Let’s take a quick look at a partial listing of the mind numbing legal
fees pocketed by fat cat lawyers in the various tobacco settlements around
the country.
State Legal Fees for Outside Counsel:
| California |
$ 637,500,000.00 |
| Florida |
$ 3,431,220,000.00 |
| Illinois |
$ 121,000,000.00 |
| Louisiana |
$ 575,000,000.00 |
| Massachusetts |
$ 775,000,000.00 |
| Michigan |
$ 558,775,000.00 |
| Mississippi
|
$ 1,430,911,300.00 |
| New York |
$ 625,000,000.00 |
| Ohio |
$ 265,000,000.00 |
| Oklahoma |
$ 250,000,000.00 |
| Texas |
$ 3,299,397,500.00 |
These incomprehensibly obscene legal fees were paid to outside legal firms
representing the various states. Why did these states, when armed with
their own Attorneys General and scads of in house attorneys elect to hire
these outside guns to do their dirty work? Good question, but look for
anyone to give us an honest answer, least of all the lawyers and the
Attorneys General involved in the heist.
One New Orleans newspaper reported that the seventeen law firms (that’s
right – 17!) involved in the Louisiana settlement who were cashing in to
the tune of $575 million could not or would not account for the time they
supposedly worked on reaching the settlement. By the way, why in the heck
did Louisiana need seventeen law firms to squeeze a settlement out of Big
Tobacco? Another good question. Anyway, these legal beagles could not come
up with an accurate tally of time worked in the state’s so-called behalf.
The best guess was that the lawyers were paid approximately $6,700.00 an
hour – which compared to some states such as Texas – was a real bargain.
The best estimates for some of the hourly fees garnered were over $100,000
per hour. Ouch! But even at the minuscule Louisiana pay scale, a lawyer
working 40 hours a week on the Louisiana shakedown was pulling down over a
quarter of a million dollars a week, over a million dollars a month and
over thirteen million dollars a year. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Lawyers making millions of dollars while the states struggle to pay
teachers, firefighters and police officers a decent wage.
Now these hotshot class action lawyers are quick to hoot and holler about
how they took on Big Tobacco with no guarantee of compensation and about
how it was their intimidating presence that saved the day. What a crock.
After the tobacco companies caved in the original settlements, where the
majority of the groundwork was laid, subsequent settlements were already
in the bag. So why did the Attorneys General of these states bring in
outside legal representation when the taxpayers in each state pay millions
annually to the attorneys already on the state’s payroll? One reason – the
political clout (read: political contributions) of these outside
attorneys.
With the basic model in place and the mathematical standards for
calculating subsequent settlements having been established, a second year
law student could have probably put the rest of these deals together for
crying out loud. In Chapter Ten of our highly acclaimed book,
It’s Time to
Wake Up and Smell the Lawyers, we cover the art of the big class action
swindle (click
book chapter summaries to read selected excerpts from the
book).
These class action lawyers are quick to point out that they’re merely
modern day Robin Hoods (although the term “hoods” is probably pretty
accurate in retrospect), taking from the rich tobacco companies and giving
to the poor. Nothing could be further from the truth, but who in the world
would expect the truth out of lawyers anyway? In reality, the people who
buy tobacco products are the ones footing these enormous legal fees.
As is the case in all businesses who get sued nowadays, the tobacco
companies just pass these enormous litigation costs right on down the line
to their customers. Many of these smokers toil in low paying jobs,
fighting to make ends meet. While one could argue that these folks should
know better and shouldn’t smoke, it is their choice since the product is
still a legal one (and lawyers will make damn certain it stays legal as
well – otherwise the gravy train would end for them).
This premise holds true for each and every industry under an all out siege
from class action lawyers nationwide. Regardless of whether you’re talking
about the auto industry, the gun industry or virtually any other deep
pocketed industry left standing in America, fast buck lawyers are looking
for ways to siphon billions more in legal fees. Truth be told about the
majority of these class action money grabs, the rich keep getting richer
while the poor keep paying through the nose. The person down on the bottom
rung of the economic ladder, those making $5/hour, $10/hour or even
$15/hour, will be forced to pay more for just about everything he or she
buys. All the while, these fat cat lawyers can keep buying their mansions,
private jets, fancy cars and last but certainly not least, more political
influence. When it comes to lawyers, enough is never enough.
As always, we wish you a lawyer free day!
Hey, if you’ve got a goofy lawsuit you’d like to pass on to us, simply
click
Stupid Lawsuits and Other Funny Stuff and we’ll add yours to
our ever growing list of stupid lawsuits.
And while you’re at in, why not take a few moments and check out our
growing collection of
Funny Lawyer
Quotes, Jokes and Cartoons?
It’s
Time to Wake Up and Smell the Lawyers
Book: If you haven’t read our highly acclaimed book, you’re missing out on
a load of information about America’s legal system – and a load of laughs
as well. You can read excerpts taken from the book by clicking
book
chapter summaries here.
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