A Lawyer With His Briefcase...

[Lonan3]

The full quotation is "A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns"

(Mario Puzo: Don Corleone, in The Godfather) and this appears to support it:

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2180827,00.html

 

Thousands of miners with chronic chest disease have been paid less than £100 in compensation under a programme that earned their solicitors 20 times as much per case.

Newly released details of the £7.5 billion scheme, the largest in the world, expose the way in which public money has benefited law firms far more generously than pitmen and their families.

One family, whose father died after spending almost half a century underground, were offered only £7.13. Yet the law firm that handled their claim has earned £41 million.

 

More than 58,000 miners were paid less than £1,000, of whom almost 4,000 banked a cheque for less than £100.

 

Thompsons, a firm of solicitors with a close relationship to the National Union of Mineworkers, has received £83.7 million from the public purse, while Doncaster-based Beresfords, linked to the Union of Democratic Mineworkers (UDM), has been paid £66.7 million.

[Chinahand]

I've been mulling about this topic for a while.

 

I think there are some general issues:

 

I agree corporate crime is a very big deal and I do think it has large effects which can be realistically compared with petty and violent crime. As such I'm glad when the courts take firm action against those who are responsible for it.

 

However I think there is a separate issue here that is important: that getting specialist knowledge is expensive and the law is one of the most complex and specialist areas in existence. People may claim the fees lawyers charge are criminal, but the simple fact is this is a service, if people think that service is too expensive for them then they don't have to pay those fees, and if they can't find anyone else to do the work for a cheaper price its more than likely due to a market operating than anything else (see caveat below!).

 

Getting to the specifics of what has happened with the miners compensation claims I think a reality check makes it out to be a less of an issue than the Times is making out.

 

Taking the info given in the article: A £7.5 billion scheme with 293,000 people claiming. On average thats £25,597 per claimant. The article says legal costs were a flat £2,125 a claim and total administration was £3,790. per claim That means total legal costs were 8.3% and total administration costs were 14.8% of the total.

 

That's pretty good. There are very few charities that are able to distribute 85.2% of their funds.

 

Some people have recieved small claims and why that is so hasn't been explained in the article; but I am not convinced this is particularly down to cheating lawyers.

 

However I do admit that it looks like both the NUM and the DUM have entered into what look like too comfortable relationships with various law firms and this does make it look like competition and the market hasn't worked in lowering costs as well as it could. However legal costs of 8.3% do not look excessive. Yes it could probably have been better, but the fact is this is being investigated and action could well be taken, so has the system really failed? On the margins, yes, substantively, I'm not so sure.

[didier]

Lawyers don't cheat as such. They just charge a helluva lot and very very often the person who gets lumped with the bill never had a clue what the likely charges would be. This is as true on the Isle of Man as it is on mainland UK.

 

Why do you think child inquiries (for example) cost £millions of pounds?? !!!

 

And as for the MEA, we'd best not enquire - except to say that it will cost a bomb. Who - incidentally - advised the MEA that it would be ok to go ahead with the loans. Yep! The lawyers!!

 

It is an awful cliche, but they ALWAYS win. WIN WIN WIN that is.

 

Q. How many crooked, corrupt and fraudulent lawyers are there?

A. None.

 

They make up the rules and the people testing the rules - the judges/deemsters - are all ex-lawyers too!!!

 

This is more noticeable on the Isle of Man than anywhere. Yet you never see a lawyer getting done for putting his/her hand in a persons back pocket do you!!

 

Maybe the simple answer is that ALL lawters on the Isle of Man are extremely upright people who do not lie and are not at all greedy.

 

Incidentally, all the ex-miners I know did quite well out of the closure of the coal mines - eventually. The lawyers as ever just want their huge cut.

[Stavros]

Lawyers don't cheat as such. They just charge a helluva lot and very very often the person who gets lumped with the bill never had a clue what the likely charges would be. This is as true on the Isle of Man as it is on mainland UK.

 

Why do you think child inquiries (for example) cost £millions of pounds?? !!!

 

And as for the MEA, we'd best not enquire - except to say that it will cost a bomb. Who - incidentally - advised the MEA that it would be ok to go ahead with the loans. Yep! The lawyers!!

 

It is an awful cliche, but they ALWAYS win. WIN WIN WIN that is.

 

Q. How many crooked, corrupt and fraudulent lawyers are there?

A. None.

 

They make up the rules and the people testing the rules - the judges/deemsters - are all ex-lawyers too!!!

 

This is more noticeable on the Isle of Man than anywhere. Yet you never see a lawyer getting done for putting his/her hand in a persons back pocket do you!!

 

Maybe the simple answer is that ALL lawters on the Isle of Man are extremely upright people who do not lie and are not at all greedy.

 

Incidentally, all the ex-miners I know did quite well out of the closure of the coal mines - eventually. The lawyers as ever just want their huge cut.

 

WTF has this got to do with the Isle of Man?

 

If it had anything to do with it, I'm sure Lonan would have posted it in Local News and not International News. If you've got something to say about Manx Advocates, perhaps you should start a thread in Local News or General / Gossip.

 

Stav.