Lawyer Is Big Winner In Webcamgate Settlement 475
crimeandpunishment writes "The Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania has agreed to a $610,000 settlement in two lawsuits over secret photos taken on school-issued laptops. Less than a third of that will go to the students. A total of $185,000 will be put in trust for the students. Their lawyer will receive $425,000."
as usual... (Score:5, Informative)
the only winners in class action lawsuits are the lawyers.
Better FAs (Score:5, Informative)
Network World [networkworld.com]
AP [google.com]
Philadelphia Inquirer [philly.com]
USA Today [usatoday.com]
Over 300 more [google.com]
Skunkpost? WTF is that?
Re:Associated costs (Score:2, Informative)
...people expect lawyers (and everyone else) to work for free.
With this sense of proletariat entitlement you would think that we were all posting from the Soviet Union rather than the US of A and Western Europe.
Although the percentage here is a bit much. Somewhere around 1/3rd is more the norm.
Although most people have only two choices: Allow for the "thick percentage" or have no representation at all.
Re:Wow, just... wow (Score:5, Informative)
Plus, if the case was taken on contingency, which it looks like it was, he has to worry about the possibility of losing and ending up being paid nothing. Which can and does happen, there's a reason why attorneys work so hard to keep things out of the courts, the jury can be very unpredictable at times.
Re:Wow, just... wow (Score:1, Informative)
Go back and read it, he's talking about lawyers. They create strife and battles to increase their already inflated incomes. They're not in trhe business of resolving issues, they want to prolong and escalate them. Most other countries also have legal professionals, but they don't chase ambulances and try and stir up the ever so lucrative class-action lawsuits. They provide a basic service for most people to conduct transactions.
Re:as usual... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it's a little-known secret that the companies being sued (and their insurers) often benefit too, and sometimes even quietly "encourage" a given firm to pursue a class action suit. For the price of one easy settlement, they're permanently indemnified from being stung with thousands of individual suits (since the VAST majority of plaintiffs, even if they do hear about the suit, will not go to the trouble to opt-out of it).
Lawyer gets paid crazy amount of cash. Company gets indemnity against future lawsuits. Consumer gets a crappy coupon for $5 off their next purchase.
Re:Wow, just... wow (Score:3, Informative)
So, it's OK to have a society where a group that produces absolutely nothing (e.g. what we call a 'parasitic class') can pocket 2/3 of our wealth? This the really what's wrong with America. Instead of asking how we can fix this awful situation we're busy asking how we can be the guy that gets paid $400k to fill out a little paperwork.
If you think being a lawyer = "filling out a little paperwork" then I suggest you try to become one. Law is one of three professions that requires post school testing and certification (medicine, accounting, and law). Engineering requires testing and certification only in the construction side of engineering. It takes more than filling out paperwork, it takes knowledge just like medicine is more than a physical exam and writing prescriptions and accounting is more than balancing a checkbook. These are just small chores that are part of a larger profession. In the case of law, it is the only one which is adversarial. That's what makes lawyers so expensive; they have to go against other lawyers. In this case, the private lawyers have to go against the state which is a tough battle.
Is 2/3 a high amount? Yes. But do you know exactly what was in that bill? Most likely the lawyers had to answer every motion, address every detail that the school district would throw at them in order to even get the suit to proceed. Being the school district, the lawyers would probably have to fight motions to dismiss as the school would argue that they can't be sued as part of state. Then even if they could be sued, everything fell under protected state behaviors, etc. That's a lot of time on a lawyer's part and time = money. Even a case that is settled like this takes up boxes and boxes of so called "paperwork."
Re:Associated costs (Score:5, Informative)
The big difference between lawyer and most other skills is that as a IT person someone asks me for advice, I am not held accountable.
A lawyer who is asked for advice by the very nature of answering is giving "Legal Advice" and can be held accountable even if it is in the setting of a party or casual question.
Makes it a lot harder for a lawyer to just answer a quick easy question.
Re:Lawyers... (Score:3, Informative)
if they are on contingency fee, if they loose the client does not pay. only if they win do they get paid.
Re:Associated costs (Score:2, Informative)
Lawyers tend to have "tiered" pricing. e.g. if you bring them a case and they can settle the case by merely writing a simple letter, and the other side agrees and decides to settle, then the lawyer's cut tends to be small. The more work they have to do (e.g. if it looks like it's going to court, or if it actually DOES go to court, or if it goes to court and then has to go to appeals, etc.) the larger the chunk.
And I suppose as an "IT guy", your model might be similar. E.g. if you can help someone merely by answering a simple question or a short email, you might not charge anything at all. But if your client were a lawyer, who asked you to spend several days being deposed about the workings of a laptop security program that takes pictures via the built-in webcam and then you had to go to court to testify... well you might actually *charge* for that much work. And the lawyer would have to pay you for it whether they win the case or not.
Still, I am a bit surprised that the lawyer managed to take about 70%.
Re:Associated costs (Score:1, Informative)
bullshit. you have no recourse if you asked a lawyer in a bar about legal advice, act on said advice and get burned by it.
just like you have no recourse if you ask a car mechanic about a funny noise at your local coffee shop, only to find out the it was something else entirely.
The same is true for all skilled professions, from carpenter to lawyer, from doctor to plumber, unless they see it with their own eyes they can only go by what they are told is happening. The average person misses a lot of little details in their general descriptions that can change the end outcome drastically.
I deal with electrcians, and home owners daily about electrical problems. Some of the questions I get asked by the average person scare me that this person would even attempt to touch a breaker in their panel. I used to keep a collection of what happens when a home owner gets the idea into their head they can save money by doing it themselves, and burn down their addition/house/garage.
You pay someone not only for what they know but to see the details your inexperience misses. You aren't held accountable if they didn't tell you the complete details.
Re:Who says our legal system is broken? (Score:3, Informative)
Just a reminder kids - stay in school - LAW SCHOOL.
That would be a bad idea. The legal job market is terrible [nalp.org] and will remain so for a long time because of the tremendous oversupply of lawyers. The situation is likely to get worse; despite the oversupply, universities are actually opening new law schools [wikipedia.org] and increasing class sizes. Meanwhile, the number of available jobs is shrinking as law firms lay off associates and partners, government agencies have their budgets frozen or cut, corporate legal departments go through similar cuts, and the overall demand for legal services goes down. For example, hard as it may be for Slashdot readers to believe, spending on patent litigation and prosecution have actually gone down in this recession.
Some highlights: Overall employment down to 88.3% (2% of which are law school 'jobs program' jobs). 25% of jobs are temporary. Only 70.8% have a job that actually requires a JD. 22% are still actively looking for work despite being employed. All of these numbers are worse than prior years. Given the self-selection and reporting bias involved it's likely that the true numbers are even worse.
Also notable is the salary distribution for new law school graduates [nalp.org]. It's bimodal, with one peak centered at $50,000 (i.e., the median family income in the US) and another at $160,000 (i.e., the select few that get jobs at large law firms). Even if you get a job with a large law firm, there's a good chance your actual employment will be deferred for up to 18 months. In the meanwhile you may or many not get paid anything, depending on the firm.
No, law school is actually a horrible decision from an economic point of view unless you can get a full scholarship or are assured of a well paying job straight out of school (e.g., strong family connections at a large law firm).
Re:Associated costs (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sure that that's true. I'm a law student and the solicitors that I know do a lot of work for free - both in the IT worker sense of giving friends small pieces of advice and by doing pro bono work for disadvantaged people.
It's true that an IT worker might offer to do some actual work, such as reinstalling software or cleaning viruses off a computer, as a favour for a friend, but there isn't really any comparable work for a lawyer. First, any mistake you make could cost an incredible amount of money for both the friend and you; second, even fairly simple tasks, such as preparing a will, can take a long time because of the formalities involved.
Re:Associated costs (Score:3, Informative)
bullshit. you have no recourse if you asked a lawyer in a bar about legal advice, act on said advice and get burned by it.
just like you have no recourse if you ask a car mechanic about a funny noise at your local coffee shop, only to find out the it was something else entirely.
Yeah, you're wrong, previous poster was correct. The attorney-client relationship can arise without any formal contract, such as when an attorney gives you legal advice that you reasonably rely upon. This creates a fiduciary relationship, and the attorney can be liable for malpractice. It's not the same with a car mechanic, because a mechanic is not in a fiduciary relationship with a customer.
Disclaimer: the above is not legal advice, I am not your lawyer, and based on your post, I would never willingly enter into a contract with you.
Re:Free Legal care! (Score:3, Informative)
Uh, when somebody shows up in an ER, they are in a situation not unlike a contingent contract. The doctor treats them, then they send a bill, and the patient may or may not pay it. If they don't pay it, the doctor cannot repossess their stitches or whatever.
It isn't a perfect analogy, but doctors do have lots of risks involved in performing their services. There is also the performance-based threat of liability.
Re:Associated costs (Score:4, Informative)
bullshit.
Holy shit, who modded this informative? This guy isn't a lawyer, he "works with electricians and home owners".
Know what, my wife is a lawyer and I feel barely qualified to answer this post. What I do know is that my wife couldn't legally give advice to people unless she was a member of that state's bar association, even though she had been admitted into three other states and two federal jurisdictions. The law isn't the same from state to state and you can be held liable for your legal opinions.
A Response From An Attorney (Score:3, Informative)
As an attorney myself, I feel the need to address some misconceptions.
1. This was not a class action, it was simply two individual cases.
2. The article is woefully sparse on details regarding the settlement. I do not practice in Pennsylvania, but I can assure you that the Rules of Professional Conduct in that state do not allow attorneys to take a nearly 70% fee. Most states will only allow a maximum fee of 35% or so. In a contingency fee practice, the client is always responsible for his or her own costs, unless the client fee agreement specifically states otherwise. Under the agreement, these costs are advanced by the attorney, but the client is ultimately responsible for repayment. In this case, it seems unlikely that the attorney could have accumulated $350k in costs, but regardless, any money above that 35% (more likely 33%) ceiling is going to repay money the attorney already spent out of his or her own pocket. These costs do not include the attorney's salary, her staff's salary, office rent, etc, they only include direct costs related to the case, such as legal research fees, travel expenses, filing fees, and expert fees.
3. An attorney DOES have repercussions if she issues casual advice to a potential client. The attorney/client relationship begins before any agreement is signed between the parties. Details, even from an initial meeting and even if the attorney is not ultimately hired to represent the client, are protected by attorney/client privilege and the attorney can land herself in hot water if she breaches this privilege.
Something to remember here is that an individual can always represent him or herself in court, so long as the individual is competent. That being said, hiring an experienced attorney will inevitably lead to a better outcome, very likely offsetting any costs. Unfortunately, our legal system is far too complex to navigate effectively without years of education and experience.
Re:Valid point, except .... (Score:3, Informative)
You'll typically be asked to pay several thousands bucks, up front, as a retainer fee, BEFORE anything is even accomplished at all. (Does you doctor or software programmer demand this?)
Not all attorneys use a retainer. For those that do (commonly in divorce, bankruptcy, and criminal defense), it's done because not using a retainer is a good way to end up with nothing. Clients are actually pretty bad about paying their bills. Sometimes they don't have the money. Sometimes they decide it wasn't worth the cost and don't want to pay. It happens very frequently, especially with private individuals.
And yes, there are software developers, designers, and other professionals that do custom work that require a retainer.
After you pay, you get billed for such things as a document being delivered and submitted to the court clerk.
First, not all attorneys or firms do this. Shop around. Some will have documents dropped off by a paralegal or secretary and bill accordingly.
Second, for an important case or important document, sometimes you want an attorney to handle the little stuff. You want someone there who can notice if the clerk mishandles it, for example. Or you want someone who can make an on-the-spot correction if needed.
For that matter, you're typically billed an hour or more for time spent drafting letters or other documents that are already saved on a PC as a Word template, and a relatively low-paid admin. assistant actually filled out
Presumably that was billed at a lower rate. If not, you should shop around. Most firms bill very different rates depending on whether the work was done by a senior or junior attorney, paralegal, or secretary.
I'm sorry about your particular case. It sounds like you picked a pretty terrible attorney. Some of what you describe sounds like you should have contacted the state bar about or otherwise disputed. You certainly should have made sure you understood the billing structure better and shopped around for alternatives before choosing an attorney. An attorney is supposed to explain his or her fee structure clearly, and if your attorney did not, then that's certainly something to complain about.