Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Archive for 2008

Microblog 2008-12-13

  • Holman Jenkins on auto bailout [WSJ] Bush’s willingness to use TARP helped the unions scuttle a reasonable deal with Corker; and why exactly did CEO Wagoner commit GM to the (dubious and self-injuring) position that buyers’d abandon the company in the event of a Chapter 11? [Hodak Value h/t Ted] So that’s what dragging Detroit down — domestic partner benefits [Brayton] And Ted wonders if it might be cheaper in the long run for the government just to buy a Senate seat from Gov. Blagojevich for every auto worker;
  • Where’d Gov. Blagojevich pick up idea it was OK to sell official acts for $$$? Can’t imagine [Ribstein] Who is Advisor B? [Byron York] Sing, Rod, sing! [Coleman] “Blago’s decision to let SEIU and not AFSCME organize Ill. child-care workers” Hmmm [Freedom-at-Work, NRTW] “How do they think Chi pols talk in private when muscling some guy for cash? Like Helen Mirren playing the queen?” [John Kass, Tribune] A look at AG Lisa Madigan [PoL] Illinois pols have shaken down hospitals before, state’s “certificate of need” (permission-to-build) law is one culprit [StateHouseCall]
  • J.K. Galbraith’s best bon mot: “bezzle” = inventory of unexposed embezzlement, revealed as tide of boom recedes [Cox, Breaking Views] Fascinating memoir of why Madoff had been giving off fishy smell for years [Tokyo Cassandra] So sleazy! “Many” investors put $ with Madoff because they suspected he was crooked — but cheating someone else [Blodget] “Madoff didn’t run one of these much-maligned, unregistered hedge funds. He was registered with the SEC. Here’s his latest 13-F, which looks perfectly normal.” [Weisenthal]
  • Daily downer for media folk [@themediaisdying h/t @amyfeldman] “Remember, America, you can’t wrap a fish in satellite radio” — P.J. O’Rourke wants bailout for print [The Australian]
  • Jurors’ political leanings predict whether they’re pro-plaintiff or defendant? Not as simple as that [Wisconsin Lawyer h/t @juryvox]
  • Asbestos rise in Madison County, Illinois could signal return to “old school” tactics [MC Record h/t @icjl]
  • Sue me harder, don’t stop now: competing Fla. fetish clubs feud in court, which’ll get whipped? [ABA Journal]
  • Russian patent office grants trademark for 😉 emoticon, businessman asking royalties [BBC h/t @bodhi1 @mediadonis]
  • Arnold Kling: loan modification way oversold as remedy for housing ills [EconLog h/t @tedfrank]
  • Best line: “the goose was not our employee or our agent” [CKA Mediation h/t @vpynchon, earlier]

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More on lawyer referrals and fee discounts

A week ago we quoted reader Phil Grossman’s comment on this subject, provoking a discussion among readers. Now Grossman writes in with a followup:

Here’s the story on bar associations forbidding “discounting of contingency fees for clients coming to lawyers directly so that those lawyers do not have to pay referral fees”.

I had told you that I had seen reports out on the Internet saying that. But it now appears that what those reports were reporting on was that bar associations do not allow lawyers to raise their contingency fees to make up for paying referral fees in those cases where they are paying referral fees. And that really amounts to the same thing as not allowing lawyers to discount fees in cases where they are not paying referral fees. Because if they were allowed to give discounts to clients where they didn’t have to pay referral fees, they would be charging clients who come to them with a referral fee to be paid, more than clients who come to them without referral fees to be paid.

Read On…

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Australia: “Gambler sues casino over $900 million binge”

Gambling addict and wealthy property developer Harry Kakavas had the presence of mind to don a hidden recorder to build his case against Melbourne’s Crown Casino for luring him back to its tables despite an order banning him from every casino in Australia. He just didn’t have the presence of mind to avoid “a mammoth 14-month baccarat binge in which he lost A$37 million”. (Reuters, Dec. 12).

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Montgomery Blair Sibley update

Not that it’s any surprise to anyone who’s been following these matters, but on Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts finally got around to denying Overlawyered reader-favorite Montgomery Blair Sibley‘s application for a stay of the order automatically suspending him from practice in the District of Columbia.  While that stay application was pending, the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility recommended in November that the suspension last three years, “with his reinstatement conditioned upon a showing of fitness to practice.”  The D.C. Bar website still shows Sibley as an “active” member of the bar.

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U.K.: “Lawyers made millions from sick miners”

“The men who became two of the highest-paid solicitors in Britain by mishandling the claims of almost 100,000 sick miners will be struck off [= disbarred] after being found guilty of misconduct yesterday. James Beresford and Douglas Smith, partners in the South Yorkshire firm Beresfords, took advantage of vulnerable miners by putting their own commercial goals before those of their clients, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found. The company earned more than £115m under a government scheme for compensating miners with health claims, and Beresford himself made more than £16m in one year.” Among allegations the tribunal accepted as valid were acting in a conflict of interest and structuring fee arrangements in a way not in the clients’ best interest. (Afua Hirsch, Guardian, Dec. 12; Point of Law, Nov. 28).

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