subject: Middle And Lower Class Citizens Affected The Same By Lawyers' Fees [print this page] For the past four years, one sixty-year old has paid a monthly fee to a lawyer. Because of this, her lawyer's fee has grown to a huge amount, and she draws $110 a month from her disability claim.
In that same state, a disabled miner has been paying his attorney a monthly fee for the past ten years, according to a local newspaper. The lawyer collects a big portion of the $134 the miner gets each month.
The sad fact of the matter is the people who are paying their lawyers can't even really afford to do so. One case showed a couple who received welfare. The husband was bedridden because of his cancer.
Poor clients are not the only ones with difficulty paying legal fees. The middle class is equally as affected by these fees on the regular.
One author has said that the middle class is a lawyers? feeding zone now. They have some money and property, but aren't well represented in government. The middle class is also the one what spawns the majority of new lawyers. The book's author wonders what this says about us psychologically.
Lawyer's fees are determined by an hourly rate. After all, doctors and plumbers charge by the hour, so why shouldn't attorneys? Of course lawyers should be paid.
The real question is just how much they should get and how long the payments should be paid to them. Divorces, will probates, and real estate investment can result in lifelong payments to lawyers.
Some unscrupulous lawyers have even stole money from the widows and orphans they were hired to safeguard. Some lawyers don't actually steal the money; they just charge exorbitant amounts for their hourly fees. The legal fees for one lawyer and his partner added up to almost 60 percent of a six figure estate in a period of five years.
The man who owned the estate had been ruled incapable of managing his money by the court. This matter had a happy ending, with the partners being ordered to repay the moneys taken from the estate. The claim was filed by one of the more eccentric attorneys in the region. Many other lawyers refused to take the case, but he didn't.
Newspapers and other media outlets also make this problem bigger because they only use the court systems as a source of content.
Fees given guardians and lawyers are certainly newsworthy, but are generally ignored. Local courts have this data available to the public. Bar associations aid in the hiding of such information. They don't want any changes made to the relationship between client and lawyer.
They do not hesitate to slap down any negative attitude toward the legal profession, should it be called out in the media.
Even though the lawyer fees are based upon the time the lawyer works the case, the percentage of compensation is usually what the lawyer wants. One bar association lawyer wants minimum fee agreements imposed on all cases.
This is known as a contingent fee. The lawyer will then get a percentage of the award, should the case be won. In most cases that involve accidents and personal injury, the contingent fee can range from 25% to 50%.
Just like poker, Americans invented the contingent fee. England, and most of Europe for that matter, won't allow lawyers to collect contingency fees. Contingency fees first were used to help injured workers in the 1840's.
These workers had no money to hire legal counsel, so the contingency fee arrangement was created so the workers could begin a civil lawsuit.
by: John Chambers
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