DOI: 10.1097/01.PRS.0000019754.44517.27
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Issn Print: 0032-1052
Publication Date: 2004/10/01
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Excerpt
Failure of the state to honor its contract was called by the plaintiff’s attorney “unconscionable. . .Massachusetts ′has gotten an incredible result (from the tobacco settlement), but instead of being grateful, it is turning on its benefactors.. . ...”1
I urge society and its courts, therefore, to view these poor, betrayed, selfless lawyers as Albert Schweitzers or Mother Theresas in legal garb. Think of the hours they spent, the papers they filed, the phone calls they answered, the risk to their health from the enormous lunches they had to consume—all this for a pittance. How unreasonable of Massachusetts’ Attorney General to state, “enough is enough. What they’re trying to raid is money used to protect kids and elders and pay for health care. They will not get it out of me.”1
This uncaring, obstinate attitude of our Attorney General calls for his censure and, one hopes, his resignation.
The fact that, in Massachusetts, general surgeons receive about $1000 for a mastectomy and cardiologists receive about $300 for inserting a pacemaker should not blind us to the plight of the beleaguered, underpaid law firms and the necessity of their contingency fees. Remember that before beginning their practice, they must spend 3 years in law school. That physicians need 1 more year to get their degree and an additional 3 to 6 years of residency should not be mentioned because it is a deliberate distraction from the central issue: namely, the scurrilous exploitation of large law firms that make only a few hundred million for their painstaking labors.
Some readers might point out that in the case just cited the firm’s expenses were 10 million dollars and that a proper fee after they had won would have been twice that. This reasoning is simplistic and foolish. The firm could have lost and, for the anxiety of not knowing whether they would win or lose, a settlement of $178 million and another $282 million is fair and equitable. Are we doctors not supposed to charge what is fair and reasonable and customary? It just so happens that the customary charge for attorneys is infinitely more than it is for doctors. To those of you who would advocate a Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance for clients, with mandatory, fixed, nonnegotiable fees for attorneys, my reply is: the situation with attorneys and doctors is different just as it is for teachers. Through Darwinian selection, lawyers but not doctors or teachers are allowed to charge and receive whatever those wanting their services are willing and able to pay. Why question the infinite wisdom of the universe?
As a concrete gesture to support the downtrodden attorneys and as an expression of ecumenicism, I urge the immediate founding of a national society composed not only of attorneys but also others who abhor injustice and exploitation. The name could be The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Lawyers (ASPCL). Any contribution exceeding $1 million—and nothing less—may be sent to me in the form of a certified check. Trust me to be sure it is sent to the tyrannized law firms so deserving of public support.
