Greedy Trial Lawyer
Trial Lawyer Vigilantes Bringing The Bad Guys To Justice
Category: My Greedy Roots
As a child I always felt vigilantes were admirable sorts who dispensed justice and protected the decent folks in some pretty rough places. Maybe that was why I was drawn to personal injury law.
Today, I came across a Wall Street Journal editorial which recognizes the vigilante role of the trial lawyer.
State AGs and Contingency Lawyers: Acceptable Bedfellows?
Posted by Peter Lattman on the Wall Street Journal Law Blog:The WSJ editorial board takes up the issue of government outsourcing legal work to plaintiffs lawyers [under contingency fee arrangements].
Today's editorial notes that defendant companies are starting to fight back on the issue. In April, a California state court ruled that Santa Clara county could not pay contingency fees to private attorneys -- Thornton & Naumes and Motley Rice -- who were suing lead-paint manufacturers on behalf of the government. In rejecting the arrangement, Judge Jack Komar cited a California Supreme Court case noting that a contingency arrangement "is antithetical to the standard of neutrality that an attorney representing the government must meet."
A prosecutor's job "is not that it shall win a case, but that justice should be done," writes the WSJ, citing the Supreme Court. "Sometimes that means foregoing a suit, or balancing litigation with other public policy goals. Such concepts aren't priorities for trial lawyers, whose main goal is to hit the financial jackpot. The U.S. justice system is frayed enough without making trial lawyers the deputized vigilantes of public prosecutors."
From my point of view, it is because the justice system is frayed that trial lawyers need to be the public's deputized vigilantes. Once we achieve justice for all (not just the corporations) we can hang up our six-shooters and return to ranching.
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.greedytriallawyer.com/admin/mt-tb.cgi/611