Greedy Trial Lawyer
A Long Tradition - The Contingency Fee Predates The Constitution
Category: Right On!
I am holding my head a little higher today. I have just learned contingency fee arrangements are older than the U.S.
Contingency Fees Don't Violate Separation of Powers, Says Columbia Prof Michael C. Dorf
We lead-paint watchers are accustomed to hearing and repeating the conventional arguments against contingency arrangement between government entities and private law firms. Maybe too accustomed. That could be lulling us into a false sense of optimism that the contingency agreement in Rhode Island will be struck down by that state's Supreme Court and that even if the ruling is appealed in County of Santa Clara, et al. v Atlantic Richfield Co., et al. our position will triumph.Columbia Law Professor Michael C. Dorf aggressively argues against what has become the party line - the separation of power notion - in contingency battles. In his blog Dorf on Law, Dorf states that contingency fee arrangements, for example, between state attorneys general and private lawyers do not violate the separation of powers. Period.
Dorf contends...the tradition of contingency arrangements is even older than the United States of America. Back then those private entities were called "relators" and they were able to file qui tam actions on the part of government entities. The relators got a cut of the action. Those sorts of arrangements still go on today, for instance, to enforce the False Claims Act.
From Law And More
It is a pity the founding fathers neglected to include the right to a contingency fee arrangement in the Bill of Rights.
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