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$110M for the lawyers is absurd. We as a country need to disincentivize lawyers from filing lawsuits like this. There should be a limit based on how many hours

$110M for the lawyers is absurd. We as a country need to disincentivize lawyers from filing lawsuits like this. There should be a limit based on how many hours they work, etc. Lawyers fees should be negotiated on top of the settlement, it's one of the reasons why our country is the way it is, lawyers trying to make a huge payday.

adventured 6y ago
That's an interesting balancing problem, because if you disincentivize it too much, Facebook can afford to own all the lawyers (so to speak) and grease their wheels enough (or intimidate them away) that nobody of any consequential skill will pursue the cases (and this is where someone argues that the government should do it instead and it should all be a public legal effort; which is where I point out that Facebook, Google, Amazon etc. are deep in bed with the government). Further, when going after monster corporations it can be both physically dangerous to your well-being and career threatening, so the financial reward should be there to take on a trillion dollar company with tens of billions in annual profit and extreme political clout. Any lawyer willing to try to cut into these extraordinarily evil companies, I say give them the money. The lawyers are being compensated like SEC whistleblowers in a modern war against vast human rights violations, they're mercenaries in a conflict and should probably be compensated as such when they achieve big results.
rubyist5eva 6y ago
If lawyers don't get paid, they don't bother going to court at all. Do they deserve to be abundantly compensated for their skills and time spent taking on one of the most powerful companies in the history of the humanity? If not - who would bother?
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  This isn't a response to a good faith reading of their comment. There is a vast gulf between 110 million dollars and not getting paid. Even keeping in mind just how expensive a lawyer's time is, how would say, 10 million dollars not be enough of a jackpot for a lawyer to take on a case like this? It really does seem like a truly arbitrary and overinflated amount for the lawyers to make out like this. I wonder how many of those 1.6M users would benefit from 50 dollars more than the lawyer will benefit from an extra 100 million.
  - rubyist5eva 6y ago
    A single lawyer is not getting 110 million dollars. It's going to multiple _firms_, likely with multiple lawyers, paralegals and other staff all involved in the case. And the rest of the settlement is still 540 million, so 5 times more than what the firms are making. If you divide the remaining 110 million between all the plaintiffs, it's an additional 68 dollars per plaintiff...and that leaves nothing left for the people that actually did the work. It's the same bad argument that the McDonald's CEO makes 20 million dollars - but he can't pay staff 15$ minimum wage, even though that 20 million split up between the tens of thousands of employees is a one time payment of pocket change.
    - BoorishBears 6y ago
      I'm not saying a single lawyer is getting 110 million dollars, again reading things in good faith, using common sense, it's simple stuff people. Lawyer is a synecdoche for the people actively working on the litigation side. Like when people say "I'm calling my lawyer" while referring to a firm with multiple names at the helm... And the rest of your comment... did you actually read the comment? I said if you leave 10 million for the cost of litigation they got 50 dollars each. See how there's numbers between 110 and 0? - 50 dollars is not pocket change for the average person, maybe for people on HN since we work in tech, but I bet relative to the worth of the average person represented, 50 dollars is worth more than the bonuses about to land where the majority of the 100 million that would otherwise benefit them is going. It's nothing like talking about the McDonalds CEO because the numbers involved are not pocket change if you apply critical thinking, 50 dollars from a one-time payout vs pocket change has very different dynamics for the recipient..
  - CogitoCogito 6y ago
    What amount is fair? Is it a percentage of the total? In that case what? Is it billable hours? In that case at what value? What value wouldn’t be arbitrary? And also consider that it’s true that the users could benefit from 50 bucks more but at the same time they didn’t do anything to receive this settlement. If the lawyers didn’t put the work in, they would get zero. I guess I just don’t understand why that number specifically is unreasonable. Regardless if a user doesn’t like it they should be able to opt out and pursue a better deal on their own.
- jennyyang 6y ago
  How do they do it in other countries? Is the US the only country in the world that protects their citizens rights? I'm pretty sure that's not true. However, I do think the US is the only country that enforces laws by "trial by ambulance chasers". Too many ambulance chasers make good money bullying small companies, either through patent laws, minor violations of laws, etc.
  - CogitoCogito 6y ago
    There’s upsides and downsides to both systems. Class actions have the advantage of enforcing rights as long as there is a lot of money involved regardless of whether regulators want to pursue the issue. In other systems e.g. onbudsmen will decide to take on issues or not, but you might not have much control yourself. I guess many systems are more of a mix rather than one extreme. Regardless, no one system is best.
    - jennyyang 6y ago
      Maybe no one system is best, but the US system is definitely the worst. So many things about our lives are dictated by precedents set by ridiculous law suits, we don't see it anymore. I went on a bicycle tour in Italy, and the owner was an American. We paid our money and took the bikes. I asked the owner if we had to fill out any release forms, and he said "You only have to do that stupid shit in the US. Here in Italy, we treat adults like adults." The realization of how intertwined our lives had become with the results of all these lawsuits shocked me. It is truly a slippery slope created by lawyers and we are now at the bottom of this slippery slope.
  - watwut 6y ago
    They do more regulation up front. In US, instead the system assumes that people will sue each other and that litigation is how details are worked out and creates precedence.
cozzyd 6y ago
Remember that whatever amount you think is fair for all the lawyers (and their staffs involved) must be adjusted by the risk of losing and spending a lot of time and effort for $0. I'm sure the lawyers still come out ahead, but it's not obvious by how much.
- grogenaut 6y ago
  I have a friend who does this. He told me the financials over the years as we talked through some of his cases over drinks. His mentor won the big tobbaco settlement which gave the lawyers a cut of $7B. He ended up making a low SDE2 salary averaged out over 10 years and had to put up significant cash and take big loans from his mentor to cover things. His mentor had to give back most of the 1/2B settlement split 7 ways when the case was reversed around 7 years later. This was a massive payday. But the firm put out millions on research / experts in cases over the years. It's very much VC Firm in many ways. In his first 7 years my friend I think was in the hole $700k for the cases, which on average took 3.5 years. Most of the cases barely made any money or lost money. One of those cases paid off enough that he was able to pay off the loans and get to he made this average salary. I know it was very stressful. He also had a different relationship with debt than I did.
diveanon 6y ago
I'm fine with this, there needs to be incentive to pursue damages against companies like philip morris and Facebook.
sto_hristo 6y ago
Orrrr you can lead with an example and become the most awesome lawyer for pennies. Show everyone in practice how it's done.
dgudkov 6y ago
Yes, it's a huge sum. But why would you want to limit someone else's income? It's not a taxpayers money. It wasn't obtained by corrupting an official. It was a fair deal between two parties and a process won in a court. Of course, the excessive complexity of the legal system is one of the reasons why lawyers get compensated so lavishly. But maybe that should be disturbing, rather than someone else's fairly earned income?
TheCoelacanth 6y ago
If they lose, you pay nothing. If they win, you get $540 million, they get $110 million. I would take that deal in a heartbeat.

adventured 6y ago

That's an interesting balancing problem, because if you disincentivize it too much, Facebook can afford to own all the lawyers (so to speak) and grease their wheels enough (or intimidate them away) that nobody of any consequential skill will pursue the cases (and this is where someone argues that the government should do it instead and it should all be a public legal effort; which is where I point out that Facebook, Google, Amazon etc. are deep in bed with the government). Further, when going after monster corporations it can be both physically dangerous to your well-being and career threatening, so the financial reward should be there to take on a trillion dollar company with tens of billions in annual profit and extreme political clout. Any lawyer willing to try to cut into these extraordinarily evil companies, I say give them the money. The lawyers are being compensated like SEC whistleblowers in a modern war against vast human rights violations, they're mercenaries in a conflict and should probably be compensated as such when they achieve big results.

rubyist5eva 6y ago

If lawyers don't get paid, they don't bother going to court at all. Do they deserve to be abundantly compensated for their skills and time spent taking on one of the most powerful companies in the history of the humanity? If not - who would bother?

BoorishBears 6y ago
This isn't a response to a good faith reading of their comment. There is a vast gulf between 110 million dollars and not getting paid. Even keeping in mind just how expensive a lawyer's time is, how would say, 10 million dollars not be enough of a jackpot for a lawyer to take on a case like this? It really does seem like a truly arbitrary and overinflated amount for the lawyers to make out like this. I wonder how many of those 1.6M users would benefit from 50 dollars more than the lawyer will benefit from an extra 100 million.
- rubyist5eva 6y ago
  A single lawyer is not getting 110 million dollars. It's going to multiple _firms_, likely with multiple lawyers, paralegals and other staff all involved in the case. And the rest of the settlement is still 540 million, so 5 times more than what the firms are making. If you divide the remaining 110 million between all the plaintiffs, it's an additional 68 dollars per plaintiff...and that leaves nothing left for the people that actually did the work. It's the same bad argument that the McDonald's CEO makes 20 million dollars - but he can't pay staff 15$ minimum wage, even though that 20 million split up between the tens of thousands of employees is a one time payment of pocket change.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    I'm not saying a single lawyer is getting 110 million dollars, again reading things in good faith, using common sense, it's simple stuff people. Lawyer is a synecdoche for the people actively working on the litigation side. Like when people say "I'm calling my lawyer" while referring to a firm with multiple names at the helm... And the rest of your comment... did you actually read the comment? I said if you leave 10 million for the cost of litigation they got 50 dollars each. See how there's numbers between 110 and 0? - 50 dollars is not pocket change for the average person, maybe for people on HN since we work in tech, but I bet relative to the worth of the average person represented, 50 dollars is worth more than the bonuses about to land where the majority of the 100 million that would otherwise benefit them is going. It's nothing like talking about the McDonalds CEO because the numbers involved are not pocket change if you apply critical thinking, 50 dollars from a one-time payout vs pocket change has very different dynamics for the recipient..
- CogitoCogito 6y ago
  What amount is fair? Is it a percentage of the total? In that case what? Is it billable hours? In that case at what value? What value wouldn’t be arbitrary? And also consider that it’s true that the users could benefit from 50 bucks more but at the same time they didn’t do anything to receive this settlement. If the lawyers didn’t put the work in, they would get zero. I guess I just don’t understand why that number specifically is unreasonable. Regardless if a user doesn’t like it they should be able to opt out and pursue a better deal on their own.
jennyyang 6y ago
How do they do it in other countries? Is the US the only country in the world that protects their citizens rights? I'm pretty sure that's not true. However, I do think the US is the only country that enforces laws by "trial by ambulance chasers". Too many ambulance chasers make good money bullying small companies, either through patent laws, minor violations of laws, etc.
- CogitoCogito 6y ago
  There’s upsides and downsides to both systems. Class actions have the advantage of enforcing rights as long as there is a lot of money involved regardless of whether regulators want to pursue the issue. In other systems e.g. onbudsmen will decide to take on issues or not, but you might not have much control yourself. I guess many systems are more of a mix rather than one extreme. Regardless, no one system is best.
  - jennyyang 6y ago
    Maybe no one system is best, but the US system is definitely the worst. So many things about our lives are dictated by precedents set by ridiculous law suits, we don't see it anymore. I went on a bicycle tour in Italy, and the owner was an American. We paid our money and took the bikes. I asked the owner if we had to fill out any release forms, and he said "You only have to do that stupid shit in the US. Here in Italy, we treat adults like adults." The realization of how intertwined our lives had become with the results of all these lawsuits shocked me. It is truly a slippery slope created by lawyers and we are now at the bottom of this slippery slope.
- watwut 6y ago
  They do more regulation up front. In US, instead the system assumes that people will sue each other and that litigation is how details are worked out and creates precedence.

cozzyd 6y ago

Remember that whatever amount you think is fair for all the lawyers (and their staffs involved) must be adjusted by the risk of losing and spending a lot of time and effort for $0. I'm sure the lawyers still come out ahead, but it's not obvious by how much.

grogenaut 6y ago
I have a friend who does this. He told me the financials over the years as we talked through some of his cases over drinks. His mentor won the big tobbaco settlement which gave the lawyers a cut of $7B. He ended up making a low SDE2 salary averaged out over 10 years and had to put up significant cash and take big loans from his mentor to cover things. His mentor had to give back most of the 1/2B settlement split 7 ways when the case was reversed around 7 years later. This was a massive payday. But the firm put out millions on research / experts in cases over the years. It's very much VC Firm in many ways. In his first 7 years my friend I think was in the hole $700k for the cases, which on average took 3.5 years. Most of the cases barely made any money or lost money. One of those cases paid off enough that he was able to pay off the loans and get to he made this average salary. I know it was very stressful. He also had a different relationship with debt than I did.

diveanon 6y ago

I'm fine with this, there needs to be incentive to pursue damages against companies like philip morris and Facebook.

sto_hristo 6y ago

Orrrr you can lead with an example and become the most awesome lawyer for pennies. Show everyone in practice how it's done.

dgudkov 6y ago

Yes, it's a huge sum. But why would you want to limit someone else's income? It's not a taxpayers money. It wasn't obtained by corrupting an official. It was a fair deal between two parties and a process won in a court. Of course, the excessive complexity of the legal system is one of the reasons why lawyers get compensated so lavishly. But maybe that should be disturbing, rather than someone else's fairly earned income?

TheCoelacanth 6y ago

If they lose, you pay nothing. If they win, you get $540 million, they get $110 million. I would take that deal in a heartbeat.