f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

Your editor got waylaid today, over at The Practice, responding to

a post called “The Contingency Fee Under Attack,” by p/i lawyer

Jonathan Stein, who purports to care about the image of lawyers.

I might have ignored the post, or left a few sentences and links to

articles here, but this paragraph was part of Jonathan’s piece:

“Finally, and this is what really set me off on this, the contin-

gency fee is under attack, and it is under attack by people

who just don’t get it. For example, there are some poetry

writing attorneys, who are not even practicing and have never

handled PI work, but argue that the contingency fee (sometimes

called the “standard contingency fee” which is garbage by itself)

is unfair. Of course, he also criticizes value billing. Interestingly,

I do not see him criticizing the hourly fee, which in some instances

is $500 per hour or more. I guess he is either too old to come to

terms with anything other than the hourly fee, too lazy to analyze

the contingency fee in context, or too afraid of being left behind

by the times.”

Since Mr. Stein was clearly talking about me, but didn’t even bother to

link to my materials about the standard contingency fee or value billing,

or refer to me by name, I felt that I needed to give a thorough response

at his site.  [update (March 22, 2006): By the way, Mr. Stein insists that

there are no insults in the above paragraph.]

                                                                                          

I left two rather lengthy Comments there.  Habitual readers of this site,

hopefully, do not think of me as being too lazy and afraid, a part of the

vast tort re-form conspiracy, nor incapable of capable analysis.  You also 

know there’s only one poetry-writing lawyer pundit here.  All in all, an an-

noying incident, brought on it seems, by my disagreement with Jonathan

Stein’s position that “Heavy Hitter” advertising should be banned as mis-

leading and undignified.

afterthought (March 21, 2006): If you happen to be interested

in my pro-client take on contingency fees and value billing, and

would rather not learn about them at Jonathan Stein’s place, there

are plenty of links on the Fees Page of the ethicalEsq Archives. 

I’m not against the contingency fee.  I merely believe that clients have

these Rights when entering into such an agreement and that lawyers

should base the percentage fee on the likely risk they are taking, and

not apply a standard rate to every client.  Similarly, I’m not against alter-

natives to hourly billing, but I am against those who use the mantra

of Value Billing as a ruse to charge clients more than they would

be charged under hourly billing.  See, e.g., here and here. 

My feelings that the legal profession is too greedy and that too many

lawyers charge far more than they are worth can be found through-

out this site, and in comments across the internet. [see, e.g.,

we need more low-fee lawyers (even in Ohio!) March 22, 2006]

Since I have already exceeded my agita-quota for this Season,

I won’t be following the discussion at The Practice.  If I need to

call a libel lawyer, please let me know.

  Law Practice Tipper Jim Calloway decided to include

Stein’s Contingency Fee post in Blawg Review #49

today, while snubbing f/k/a‘s workproduct from last

week [– see update immediately below.] Nonetheless,

we urge you to cull the offerings in Blawg Review #49 —

if only, to keep in the habit for our hosting gig on April 10th

and George Wallace’s bi-blogal feat on April 3rd.

update (April 7, 2006):  I just learned from Jim Calloway

that he had tried to include a post from f/k/a in BR49, but

ran into the problem, at the time he had to post his edition,

 of our webserver being down.  He thought he had a bad link

and could not get a correct one due to the webserver problem.

We should have known Jim is a straight-shooter and apologize

for any suggestion he might have had ulterior motives.  It would,

of course, have been nice to have been included once Jim

learned the link was good and the webserver functioning. That

has not happened.

It’s been a long day.  Let’s celebrate the arrival of Spring,

seen through the eyes of peggy lyles:   

moonlight

the winter look

of baby’s breath
in bloom

paw prints
across the moon roof
cats in love

a whistle
cut from bamboo
the long day
 

old homeplace . . .
around the pear tree
fragrant light

spring sunbeam
the baby’s toes
spread apart

peggy lyles

Pinecone  (The North Georgia Haiku Society)