These are legal fees imposed on people who are fighting to get money to live, and cannot afford another monthly bill based on their battle. The woman mentioned above is on welfare, and her husband's Cancer has made him bedridden and unable to work. Legal fee issues don?t just affect the poor. It riddles the middle class wallet, as well.
The American middle class is targeted with exorbitant legal fees because they have the money and resources to be able to make regular payments, yet lack adequate representation in the state legislature. Interestingly enough, the middle class also gives us most of our new lawyers. The author wonders what this means psychologically.
Legal fees are usually made on a hourly basis. One lawyer who concentrates on compensation cases argues that doctors and plumbers are paid on an hourly basis, so why shouldn't attorneys be paid hourly? No one really thinks the lawyers should not be paid. The real issues are how long payments should be made to the lawyer, and how much they should really charge. Some middle class clients are making monthly payments for their lifetime based on large legal fees for their divorce, purchase of real estate, personal injury claim, and sometimes even to write their Will!
There have been instances of attorneys who were appointed trustees of estates or trust funds, where they have stolen the money from the very people for whom they were to keep the money safe. Of course, those are the obvious ones, unlike those that rob you by charging large fees for their services. One partnership charged so much in fees, it took approximately 60 per cent of an estate worth six figures! The man who owned the estate was ruled by the court to be incompetent of managing his own affairs. The money was recovered from the lawyers in this case. Another lawyer who had a reputation of being eccentric took them to court over it. Many other lawyers refused to take the case, but he didn't.
Media outlets contribute to the problem because they only report some of the goings-on of the courts. Fees given guardians and lawyers are certainly newsworthy, but are generally ignored. Local courts have this data available to the public. Some of the problem could also be contributed by the bar association itself. They don?t want any changes made to the relationship between client and lawyer. If anything negative is presented by the media about the legal profession, the associations quickly make a statement to the contrary.
These days, lawyers are more inclined to accept the contingent fee arrangements over the hourly fee agreements, even though they track their time by hours. The bar association supports this arrangement, as well. These contingency fee agreements state that the attorney can take a percentage of the money awarded if the case is successful. Twenty-five to fifty percent is the normal range paid in personal injury suits.
The contingency fee was created in the United States, just like the game of poker was. A lawyer is not allowed to take a fee only if he wins for the client in England and almost all of Europe. Contingency fees first were used to help injured workers in the 1840?s. The contingency fee was the only means of filing a civil suit because they had no money.
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