Salary Caps for PI Lawyers

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-06-13 09:17am

In my state of Ohio, a law is in the process of being passed that would cap lawyer's salary to a far lower percentage.
Currently no matter how much the case is over, the lawyer takes 33% and higher cuts for their pay. So they are under a heavy incentive to fight for larger than necessary lawsuits.
This law would damp their salaries extremely:
Less than $100000: 35% cut
$100000-$600000: 25% cut
$600000-and up: 15% cut

You can plainly see that lawyers are up in arms about this.
This is probably long overdue.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2003-06-13 10:02am

Sweet. Too bad they'll have to fight a zillion lawyers to pass it.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2003-06-13 10:39am

Tort reform? Yeah fucking right! You'd have a better chance of getting Dr. Laura to admit she's a carpet licker.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-06-13 10:41am

America is run by lawyers. This will never pass.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2003-06-13 10:47am

Darth Wong wrote:America is run by lawyers. This will never pass.

Almost every country is run by lawyers,so the world is screwed,i`m starting maybe we would be better under the ruling fist of a king or a military dictatorship.

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-06-13 01:32pm

Yes but should a dictator claim power, it'll probably be a lawyer.

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2003-06-13 03:48pm

Darth Wong wrote:America is run by lawyers. This will never pass.

Couldn't have said it better myself...

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2003-06-13 03:59pm

That would be nice, along with having the loser pay the other persons legal bills if the judge deems appropriate, and rules regulating nuisance lawsuits like the RIAA does... of course, it would never happen.

David · Post by **David** » 2003-06-14 12:29am

I have a friend that works for a law firm here, he gave a rather convincing speech against tort reform. I'll try to post it sometime.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-06-14 02:09am

David wrote:I have a friend that works for a law firm here, he gave a rather convincing speech against tort reform. I'll try to post it sometime.

I'd like to hear that. I'm curious to see if he either A) suggests a workable alternative to tort reform that would fix serious problems like spiraling insurance costs and the threat of legal action as de facto extortion, or B) demonstrates that tort reform wouldn't solve those problems.

For the record, I'm actually not thrilled with this proposal. I'd rather see limits placed on the amount of money a plaintiff can collect, not how much a private individual can charge for his services.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-06-14 02:18am

Most of the arguments against tort reform try to portray it as condemning widows and orphans to perpetual poverty and injustice. Ironically enough, it is the same sort of emotional manipulation that is routinely performed in the courtroom of the very lawsuit cases under discussion.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-06-14 02:26am

Darth Wong wrote:Most of the arguments against tort reform try to portray it as condemning widows and orphans to perpetual poverty and injustice. Ironically enough, it is the same sort of emotional manipulation that is routinely performed in the courtroom of the very lawsuit cases under discussion.

Those are the only ones I've heard. That's why I'm so curious about this one. I'm sure there are better arguments--maybe not ones that would convince me to change my mind, but ones that would at least force me to think about my position harder (I get uncomfortable when I realize I've been thinking my position is unassailable).

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-06-14 06:45pm

RedImperator wrote:For the record, I'm actually not thrilled with this proposal. I'd rather see limits placed on the amount of money a plaintiff can collect, not how much a private individual can charge for his services.

The reason for popular support of tort reform is that it would only hurt the lawyers. And it would push back the onslaught of unnecessary litigation that clogs our nations judicial infrastructure.
It would do this by taking away the incentive on the lawyers part to take advantage of greedy plaintiffs who think they can get away with hundreds of thousands of dollars more than is necessary.
[edit]further explanation[/edit]

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-06-14 06:56pm

SyntaxVorlon wrote:
RedImperator wrote:For the record, I'm actually not thrilled with this proposal. I'd rather see limits placed on the amount of money a plaintiff can collect, not how much a private individual can charge for his services.
The reason for popular support of tort reform is that it would only hurt the lawyers. And it would push back the onslaught of unnecessary litigation that clogs our nations judicial infrastructure.

There are other ways to throw the brakes on the litigation gravy train without telling private businessmen what they can and can't charge for their services. You're going to need to do more than limit the laywers' take anyway--whether they're collected 10% or 33% of a million dollar cash settlement, they're still making a shitload of money through legal extortion. Loser pays and punitive damage caps (indexed to compensatory damages, preferably) would be more useful.

David · Post by **David** » 2003-06-14 09:06pm

Ok what my friend was arguing for isn't exactly the same thing as what you posted originally. Basically he was arguing against PI caps for the awards given to the injured person. Basically this would infringe upon the right of a jury to determine what the person deserves as a reward, even if the public in general doesn't agree with the award. He even managed to kill some of the rumours about the most (in)famous awards like for the lady that spilled the McD's coffee on her ( she sufferd burns across her body and permanent scarring from her torso to her genetalia due to the coffee being 50 degrees to hot.) He also pointed out that awards like these DO make the companies change there policies on certain isssues. He also pointed out that tort reform would not do a damn thing to the insurance rates. I would point out that he backed up all of his points with clear evidence taken from dozens of reliable sources. This all came up because Texas is about to vote on tort reform. I can assure you that out of the 30 people in the group, some at first very much for tort reform, everyone of us signed the letters he brought to send to the state reps to vote against this specific bill for tort reform. I'll try to dig up the research papers he gave me so I can give you all the links to his information.

I'm not saying all tort reform is bad, such as the part about limiting how much the firm can take from the injury award, but I think putting a limit on how much a jury can award is wrong.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2003-06-15 02:02am

Did he say anything about loser pays? That would go a long way towards ending nuisance lawsuits, I would imagine.

As for his argument about infringing on the jury's right to decide how much the plaintiff recieves, does he also have a problem with laws that infringe on judges' rights to sentence people to death for misdemeanors? We accept legal limits on criminal punishments because it's unjust and inhumane to let a judge or jury pass out any sentence he or they see fit for a crime, but it's okay to give a jury free reign to make up whatever numbers they like--with a lower standard of proof than what exists in a criminal trial, for that matter--in civil cases?

I'm not, for the record, in favor of any concrete caps on settlements. What I am in favor of is indexing punitive damages to compensatory damages, at a ratio that leaves room for real punishment but prevents idiocy like awarding smokers billions of dollars for ignoring the warnings on the side of cigarette packs. There was a Supreme Court case on this not too long ago that theoretically opened the door to these kind of limits being placed. IIRC, under those rules, the woman in that McDonald's coffee case would have been eligible for the entire settlement she recieved plus several hundred thousand dollars more. I'll withold judgement until I see the actual argument, but right now this all sounds like more of the "the big companies will get away with murdering widows and orphans!" tripe that trial lawyers have been spewing for years.