Sue Happy Lawyers

[kddani]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Also, you completely misunderstand the basic premise of some of these lawsuits - asbestos cases hinge on exposure, but the actual tort issues are mostly related to one or more of product defect, negligence in removal, or outright lying about the dangers. Exposure does not equal death, or even illness, in every case - for that reason, there may be NO DIFFERENCE in the eyes of the law between someone who is sick and someone who has been exposed with little or no (current) health issues. Basically, your example kind of sucks, too - I just can't really get on board with your point, because it may or may not even apply.

I wrote a long post dissecting his asbestos example, but decided that it was too incoherent to post and more of a personal rant about what I see in my pratice. Suffice to say, I find the information inaccurate. In many areas of the country (possibly all- I can only speak for my state and surrounding states that I am knowledgeable of) asbestos lawsuits are not brought on a class action basis. Perhaps he saw a grouping of plaintiffs (which is common for administrative purposes- i.e. conducting discovery, case management orders, etc.) and thought that meant class action.

I could go on and on and type a few pages on this, but i'm making myself quit. Lol.

[EE-BO]

Self-regulation exists for all licensed professions. This is nothing new or revolutionary.

To go back to something Geeky Penguin said- you are right that those who sign on to these lawsuits are doing so willingly.

My contention is that a licensed attorney has a duty to all of those clients just as I, as a CPA and licensed broker-dealer principal, have a duty to my clients.

Working class men and women who suffered as a result of exposure to asbestos had very few options- especially those living in rural areas that were, in many cases, "company towns".

People like you and me don't get paid 3 digits an hour to just do what our client wants. A big part of earning our fee is in guiding our clients through that decision process to help them understand what is in their best interests.

In my view, it does not matter that the clients in this case had a "choice" to not enter a class action.

The attorney, being the one well versed in the various legal options, is presumed to helped that client make the right choice for himself.

And any attorney who attaches a serious asbestos claim to a massive class action suit in order to add value to that suit, and his fee, at the expense of the client with a serious claim- is acting in an unethical manner pure and simple.

On the face of it, a reasonable person would look at some of these asbestos class action suits and conclude that an attorney was acting in his own interests at the expense of his clients and the common good.

Complaining about it and getting action is another matter- and that is where I have a concern because I have personally witnessed flagrant ethical violations that have not been addressed at all. It was not my place in those jobs to be the one to complain- but if I someday find myself in that position I most certainly will take action.

(PS- I am not accusing you of being unethical because we might disagree- just trying to frame this as I see it and let the discussion go deeper.)

[EE-BO]

Originally Posted by kddani

I wrote a long post dissecting his asbestos example, but decided that it was too incoherent to post and more of a personal rant about what I see in my pratice. Suffice to say, I find the information inaccurate. In many areas of the country (possibly all- I can only speak for my state and surrounding states that I am knowledgeable of) asbestos lawsuits are not brought on a class action basis. Perhaps he saw a grouping of plaintiffs (which is common for administrative purposes- i.e. conducting discovery, case management orders, etc.) and thought that meant class action.

I could go on and on and type a few pages on this, but i'm making myself quit. Lol.

If you still have the post, would you PM it to me? I would like to read it.

Keep in mind I am approaching this from a finance perspective. And I am also referring to a very specific set of cases that arose with 2 companies in a specific part of the country that were filed in 4 adjoining states. These were filed as class action suits unless I am not understanding the term correctly. There were long lists of existing plaintiffs, but also documentation of the outreach to potential plaintiffs to join in the action.

I cannot speak for asbestos in general by a long shot- just those specific cases on which I did extensive work. Given how many cases there are in varying industries with varying types and degrees of exposure- I wonder if anyone can be a true authority on the subject. My line of work rarely delves into the legal arena, so I can only speak to that which I have seen personally.

[EE-BO]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

Also, you completely misunderstand the basic premise of some of these lawsuits - asbestos cases hinge on exposure, but the actual tort issues are mostly related to one or more of product defect, negligence in removal, or outright lying about the dangers. Exposure does not equal death, or even illness, in every case - for that reason, there may be NO DIFFERENCE in the eyes of the law between someone who is sick and someone who has been exposed with little or no (current) health issues. Basically, your example kind of sucks, too - I just can't really get on board with your point, because it may or may not even apply.

This may be a nice attempt at discrediting my argument by saying you know more about the law than I do (which I would hope you do since you are the lawyer in this conversation), but it is not relevant to the discussion at hand.

I would love to get into a detailed discussion about the premise being exposure- but to do so would get into details that will let you know about one of the cases I worked on which was highly publicized.

But forget all that for a moment, and forget class action, forget fees and forget all the other smoke screens here. Let's try a hypothetical with the greatest degree of detail I am comfortable sharing (meaning the below is not a deviation from facts of a specific case, but is generalized.)

You are an attorney. You have 500 asbestos plaintiffs in front of you- all of which you have documented evidence that you solicited to file a claim.

5 of those people had extensive exposure over many years and are showing serious symptoms of being ill. 495 of them had minimal exposure, many of them 10+ years ago, and NONE of them show ANY signs of ill effects from their past exposure. By minimal exposure I mean that in some cases the plaintiff- while properly masked- encountered asbestos material the size of a coin for a few moments.

You group all of these cases into one action- be it class action or a compilation for administrative purposes- and you settle out of court for a certain amount.

Your 5 plaintiffs who had long term exposure and are showing symptoms- all working class men in rural towns with no knowledge of the legal system- get $30,000 each on average at the end.

Your other 495 plaintiffs get $15,000 each on average at the end.

Take into account that today a legitimate asbestos claim for someone with long term exposure and known medical impact is in the millions.

Also take into account that a single suit for someone with minimal exposure and no signs is a no-go.

Tell me as a member of the general public (and the general public is not all that stupid) that there is not a serious ethical issue here and please explain why.

Tell me how your advice to those 5 medically impacted clients to settle for $30,000 along with a cast of others was better for them than pursuing a solo case.

If you can explain why- and yes including detailed analysis of the basis of law for the suit in the context of the question, I will defer to you and say I am wrong.

And if I am wrong on this specific hypothetical, then my answer is there is a problem with the law- and that is another topic.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by EE-BO

This may be a nice attempt at discrediting my argument by saying you know more about the law than I do (which I would hope you do since you are the lawyer in this conversation), but it is not relevant to the discussion at hand.

In an ironic twist, I'm certainly not a lawyer - I'm a consultant. Large class action suits help to drive my entire field, for better and worse.

Originally Posted by EE-BO

I would love to get into a detailed discussion about the premise being exposure- but to do so would get into details that will let you know about one of the cases I worked on which was highly publicized.

But forget all that for a moment, and forget class action, forget fees and forget all the other smoke screens here. Let's try a hypothetical with the greatest degree of detail I am comfortable sharing (meaning the below is not a deviation from facts of a specific case, but is generalized.)

You are an attorney. You have 500 asbestos plaintiffs in front of you- all of which you have documented evidence that you solicited to file a claim.

5 of those people had extensive exposure over many years and are showing serious symptoms of being ill. 495 of them had minimal exposure, many of them 10+ years ago, and NONE of them show ANY signs of ill effects from their past exposure. By minimal exposure I mean that in some cases the plaintiff- while properly masked- encountered asbestos material the size of a coin for a few moments.

You group all of these cases into one action- be it class action or a compilation for administrative purposes- and you settle out of court for a certain amount.

Your 5 plaintiffs who had long term exposure and are showing symptoms- all working class men in rural towns with no knowledge of the legal system- get $30,000 each on average at the end.

Your other 495 plaintiffs get $15,000 each on average at the end.

Take into account that today a legitimate asbestos claim for someone with long term exposure and known medical impact is in the millions.

Also take into account that a single suit for someone with minimal exposure and no signs is a no-go.

Tell me as a member of the general public (and the general public is not all that stupid) that there is not a serious ethical issue here and please explain why.

Tell me how your advice to those 5 medically impacted clients to settle for $30,000 along with a cast of others was better for them than pursuing a solo case.

I'll cling to the IANAL defense here, but I'd agree there is strong potential for ethical concerns and severe conflict of interest.

However, this does not change the fact that while the damages awards may be different for those who are ill, there may not be any sort of difference between the sick and the healthy in the eyes of the law. No one here can discuss this issue with you any further without more specific details on the issues involved, which is probably impossible.

Also, there's another potential obviating factor here: individual-plaintiff cases are insanely profitable for attorneys, as well, and if the implication is that the sick plaintiffs are included to drive up damages awards (which they probably would, again trust me here), then it seems somewhat shifty to conclude it is somehow 'better' for the attorney to try a class-action case instead of individual cases (at the expense of the 5 sick plaintiffs).

You also run into problems here where the class representatives are often decided upon by the judge, and so the five sick plaintiffs may not even be the class reps, and etc etc etc - the scenario is too complex to really break down into such broad strokes.

However, I will agree that abusing the five sick plaintiffs at their expense is, at the least, a breach of ethics - I'm just not sure how often that even really happens, or how likely it is that the abuse is as clean-cut as in your hypothetical.

Does any of this make sense? I'm out of my mind tonight . . .

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by EE-BO

People like you and me don't get paid 3 digits an hour to just do what our client wants. A big part of earning our fee is in guiding our clients through that decision process to help them understand what is in their best interests.

I'm not going to address the other parts of your argument, as kddani and RC have done a far better job than I would have; as a 1L, with them actually seeing this in practice, I'll leave it up to them.

However, I caught this part of your statement, which seems in line with comments from a couple of other posters on this board. Attorneys aren't just running up client bills for the heck of it; they have ethical regulations they agree to when they take the bar for a certain state, ethical standards they have to fulfill whenever they practice. A big part of this is, as you noted in your own profession, counselling a client on what's best for him, her, or his/her business.

This doesn't only mean pursuing long, expensive litigation. A lot of times, it could mean warning someone that the costs of litigation won't be worth the final result. It could mean going to alternative dispute resolution, mediation, or dropping things altogether, based on what the client's ultimate decision.

Your hypotheticals could include such variables as, a client who really does not want to pursue long litigation, or a smaller practitioner without access to a number of resources, etc.

It seems your comments come down more to an ethical level, so I (even as a lowly 1L) felt compelled to comment.

[EE-BO]

Yes- I am speaking purely from an ethics standpoint.

I know enough about the law to know I have no business trying to address the subtle aspects of how laws are written and interpreted lol. I will leave that to you guys.

[GeekyPenguin]

Originally Posted by shinerbock

I'll sue anybody. I mean anybody. Nuns, puppies, just wait till I pass the bar/graduate from law school/finish my first semester.

Bumping for one of my favorite GC quotes of all time.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by GeekyPenguin

Bumping for one of my favorite GC quotes of all time.

Haha, yeah - and your signature quote is great as well.