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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

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.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    https://www.law360.com/articles/641797/2-routes-to-hourly-rates-for-lawyers https://www.law360.com/articles/641797/2-routes-to-hourly-ra... If your friend came to you and said "I hired a guy to make the home page for my startup and got charged 1000 dollars an hour" would you say "well who's to decide the value of an hour it's arbitrary"? After all, there are developers making more than the 2 million a year or so TC, and who are you to say how much effort was involved? Think about if things pass a smell test, apply some lateral thinking... No one here knows for sure what the litigation cost in terms of billable hours, but 110 million dollars is a lot of money! If the average pay of someone touching this case was $400 an hour, you're talking about man centuries of billable hours (mind you that 6 hours of billable hours out of an 8 hour day of work is not bad for a lawyer) In reality the average pay is much lower since even if the lawyers were billing a thousand an hour, the people under them aren't anywhere near 400 an hour. There is absolutely no reason why the court shouldn't attempt to find a market rate for their efforts and pay that... as I linked to start, it's been approached before - And on a meta note... all too often I see people go "well if you don't have every fact you must discard any attempt at reasoning about it, it's arbitrary" Lateral thinking, extrapolation, just building an intuition, all valuable skills to work on.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Lawyers charge hourly fees when clients pay up front. They take a percentage for contingency cases. $110M seems excessive but 16% is normal for a class action. Your first comment made a good point. Your other comments were needlessly condescending.
- CogitoCogito 6y ago
  Also to add to my previous post, the costs should be approved by a judge and they should be pretty detailed in their billing. So they are pretty much the opposite definition of “arbitrary”.
  - BoorishBears 6y ago
    Are you proposing they do this... which is pretty much in line witj my point? Or under the impression they do this? Because if you follow the case info the lawyers based their compensation on a simple percentage from the get-go. The negotiation from the judge to increase the payout was also based on percentage points. This approach scales well for smaller cases. People who can't afford representation get it without trying to figure out billable hours. But as I explain in my other comment, it's worth the courts asking if this scales in a sensible way to cases like this.
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.

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.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  https://www.law360.com/articles/641797/2-routes-to-hourly-rates-for-lawyers https://www.law360.com/articles/641797/2-routes-to-hourly-ra... If your friend came to you and said "I hired a guy to make the home page for my startup and got charged 1000 dollars an hour" would you say "well who's to decide the value of an hour it's arbitrary"? After all, there are developers making more than the 2 million a year or so TC, and who are you to say how much effort was involved? Think about if things pass a smell test, apply some lateral thinking... No one here knows for sure what the litigation cost in terms of billable hours, but 110 million dollars is a lot of money! If the average pay of someone touching this case was $400 an hour, you're talking about man centuries of billable hours (mind you that 6 hours of billable hours out of an 8 hour day of work is not bad for a lawyer) In reality the average pay is much lower since even if the lawyers were billing a thousand an hour, the people under them aren't anywhere near 400 an hour. There is absolutely no reason why the court shouldn't attempt to find a market rate for their efforts and pay that... as I linked to start, it's been approached before - And on a meta note... all too often I see people go "well if you don't have every fact you must discard any attempt at reasoning about it, it's arbitrary" Lateral thinking, extrapolation, just building an intuition, all valuable skills to work on.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Lawyers charge hourly fees when clients pay up front. They take a percentage for contingency cases. $110M seems excessive but 16% is normal for a class action. Your first comment made a good point. Your other comments were needlessly condescending.
CogitoCogito 6y ago
Also to add to my previous post, the costs should be approved by a judge and they should be pretty detailed in their billing. So they are pretty much the opposite definition of “arbitrary”.
- BoorishBears 6y ago
  Are you proposing they do this... which is pretty much in line witj my point? Or under the impression they do this? Because if you follow the case info the lawyers based their compensation on a simple percentage from the get-go. The negotiation from the judge to increase the payout was also based on percentage points. This approach scales well for smaller cases. People who can't afford representation get it without trying to figure out billable hours. But as I explain in my other comment, it's worth the courts asking if this scales in a sensible way to cases like this.

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.