It is Easy to Hate Lawyers
Although it is possible that a class action suit may serve a noble purpose, the vast majority of them are most likely generated by the profit motive of a lawyer or a legal firm. If a typical contingency fee is the payment arrangement for a class action suit the lawyers stand to gain substantial remuneration compared to the clients the suit supposedly serves.
Let’s say you had 10,000 individuals that were party to a class action lawsuit. Let’s say further that the award was one million dollars. That would be less than 70 dollars per client and a whopping $333,333.34 for the lawyer(s). Someone is burdened by paying the one million dollar award. The money to the clients is of little consequence to them. And a lawyer or group of lawyers just made a sizable profit.
In some cases the clients may even lose money on a deal just described. If the defendant is a commercial interest the loss of paying the award whether structured payments or not will likely be absorbed later in the cost of doing business. In other words the loss will be passed on to customers. It is conceivable that if the clients remain customers after the suit, the increase they will pay for the defendant’s wares will exceed their award over time. And everyone will lose as the price of consumer goods reflects the cost of the suits. The lawyers are the only ones who win here.
In the threatened class action suit of the referenced article there may be no monetary award. But the immigration lawyers need more visas, green cards and the like so they can continue to charge prospective immigrants for their services whether they are needed or not. These lawyers have no interest in immigration other than pay for services rendered. These two examples make it easy to hate lawyers.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
Immigration lawyers to sue over U.S. about-face on visas
International Herald Tribune
By Julia Preston
Friday, July 6, 2007
A national association of immigration lawyers plans to bring a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. immigration agency for refusing to accept thousands of applications for work-based permanent visas from highly skilled immigrants who were encouraged by the government to apply.According to accounts Thursday by officials and lawyers, the immigrants were caught in a confrontation between the two federal bodies that control the immigration system: the State Department and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.