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Infographic: America, The Lawsuit-Happy Nation
By EconMatters
According to the latest BLS national wage estimate through May 2010, the mean annual salary for lawyers was around $129,440, which partly accounts for the fact that the U.S. has one of the highest number of lawyers per capita in the world.
Based on data from the American Bar Association, there are over 1.2 million lawyers in the United States. That's one attorney for every 254 Americans, which also makes some of the stunning statistics (and what a waste of resources) illustrated in the infographic below somewhat "logical":
- 15 million lawsuits will be filed in 2011 across the U.S.
- A new lawsuit every 2 seconds
- One lawsuit for every 12 adults
- 21 U.S. states are facing a medical liability crisis
- $248.1 billion = the cost to the U.S. tort system (personal injury) in 2009, or $808 per person
- The cost per capita of tort related lawsuits has increased 800% between 1950 to 2009
The Great Recession may have diminished the ability of lawyers to command a higher salary, but probably at the same time also has increased the likelihood of frivolous litigation, as the odds are good for some kind of settlement to avoid an even more costly trial, particularly when insurance companies are involved.
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August 27, 2011
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You have no fucking idea what you're talking about, Gordon. From the likes of you, a "fuck you" is a compliment. It means I challenged your child-like world view.
Gordon can now go back to his video game world. Those of us who actually have to work as corporate drones can spot corporate propaganda when we see it.
Rand and Weinerdog get extra points for meaningless slurs... </sarc>
Gordon at least attempted to make an assertion related to the article.
WTF are you referring to here? Seriously...
Life is so unfair.
And my insurance has gone up 30% in the last year!
'Unfortunately' I have not made any frivolous claims to 'compensate' me for this massive rise
So I am paying for all the fraud that people get away with
But can you blame them because the banksters showed the way... be bad and you get paid big bucks.
But in the UK they are severly cutting back on Legal Aid for the poorest, so only the ones that don't need the money can afford to go ahead.. rich get richer yet the poor suffer...
Agreed: there is far too much wasteful/needles litigation.
However, what becomes of a society whose citizens have NO recourse for a violation of their personal or property rights?
As Sequitur points out; what do you do when someone runs you down and their (or even your) insurance company refuses to compensate you?
What do you do if your auto manufacturer (GM) refuses to honor your vehicle warranty?
What do you do when your mortgage company begins foreclosure proceedings with forged paperwork?
What do you do when your doctor amputates the wrong leg?
Without at least some basic access to justice, I guess you're just SOL...
On the other hand, I have always advocated the English ('Loser Pays') system; would reduce much of the truly frivolous suits.
Tort reform is never discussed seriously.
Everyone has their hand in the cookie jar.
"Tort Reform" is a scam pushed by the insurance lobby so they can fuck people harder. How many lawyers are going to take looser cases on contingency?
For every case you can find with a ridiculous outcome for the plaintiff - I can show you 100 others where folks with legitimate claims were getting unelievably screwed by carriers where the case should've settled.
Speaking of which - only 1-2% of filed cases ever go to a jury.
PS Yes - there are too many lawyers. I agree with the posters that it is an ABA/law school/loan issue more than anything.
Matt Damon in Rainmaker movie: What's the difference between a lawyer and a hooker? A hooker will stop screwing you when you are dead!
The corporate parasite culture is now so prevalent. When 1% of the nation controls 66% of its profit potential and 30% of its wealth, its normal for the bees to buzz around the honey pot. Follow the money trail, protect its owners, and earn your cut. Never mind if you serve a useful purpose in society, you are part of the "political lobby/corporate parasite" culture of affluent society. When the affluence dies those parasites disappear. They may even contribute to its demise as they become a useless weight around its neck like those who profit from its nefarious ponzis.
The current IMF boss made her corporate mark as a corporate lawyer in one of the biggest lawyer firms of the world. That is a sign of the times...They are everywhere.
Empires die under the weight of its own trappings that serve no purpose except sterile power and its oligarchs. The harder they fall. Is this tipping point western culture? Good question. I don't know the answer.
Guess who she represented? The big business/banking interests, of course. I suppose if you took away the public's right to sue large corporations and insurance companies it would have the effect of costing some lawyers like her their jobs, but mostly it would just further embolden already out of control mega corporations to screw us even more. I know, let's all give up our rights so that the banksters and multi-national CEOs can make even more money!
The only mention of this idea is in YOUR posts. No one else is suggesting this. You are the only one and you bring it forth multiple times as it it were already part of the discussion. You also managed to attach a fear-based scenario to this injected premise each time you bring it up -- nice touch!
I'll go out on a limb and speculate that you yourself are a lawyer.
The best way to deal with lawyers is to drown them. All of them.
I would hate to see perfectly good water contaminated. A guillotine would do the job just fine.
Don’t forget that impalement, hanging, evisceration and crucifixion are always options if an example needs to be set.
Totally disagree with your harsh, cruel, and unjust statement.
The best way to deal with lawyers is by slow roasting on an open fire.
Pavlik Morozov was a brainwashed pioneer (communist boy scout) in post revolution Russia. He complained to communist about his father who was a kulak (capitalist farmer). Communists killed his father. Other villagers, who were sympathetic with his father, killed Pavlik for betrayal of his family.
Soviet propaganda later said that Pavlik was a hero young communist. His portrait was hanging on the wall in my classroom.
You need Pavlik's portrait in every US courtroom.
Funny US citizens. No limits.
I did not know about this story so I performed a shallow research on the topic. Enough to see it is once again propaganda. Cheap propaganda.
Reporting debunked communist propaganda.
Funny one.
US citizens live in a world of propaganda. They can not detach from it, even when they are the ones who debunked the propanda.
Incredible.
Could you imagine of people working at exposing lies and once the lies are exposed, unable to admit the result of their own work and still preferring lies over the facts they revealed?
You dont have to actually. Because it is common place in this US world order.
You want to post some shallow links to your shallow research for us to peruse? C'mon -- show us the way!
"Could you imagine of people working at exposing lies and once the lies are exposed, unable to admit the result of their own work and still preferring lies over the facts they revealed?"
Yes, it is a recipe:
1. preheat with cognitive dissonance
2. add thesis drift
3. Add loose credit to taste
The more I have read about the Bolsheviks and Stalinists and National Socialists (and all their totalitarian methods) over the years, has made me wonder about this country and where it's headed.
What does not make any sense, though, if our leaders were so concerned in a genuine sense, why they did not place ordinary former Soviet citizens front and center during the cold war and after, perhaps testifying before Congress regularly, outlining the methods, goals and objectives of these clowns.
Americans know nothing from an historical perspective of how things like this REALLY operate, and thus are unable to see creeping and accelerating tyranny right in front of them. Guys like you would have been
instrumental in helping to educate the populace against the power of the state, however that never happened. One wonders why.
Those who buy this shlock, ask yourselves: why aren't there requirements in all cases where you sue a doctor that the plaintiff must have a "certificate of merit" attached to it? In California, if you sue an architect, you have to attach one to your complaint. But not for doctors. While it would not solve this purported problem, a carefully-crafted scheme would surely reduce the number of suits. Make it a requirement that any health care professional that writes out a certificate meet a certain minimum standard of existing work experience in the specialty in question of the defendant medical professional. Also, the health care professional can only write a maximum number of certificates in a given period of time, say a year. This would surely reduce the number of suits. Defense firms would have to cut attorneys and staff. Medical professional would no longer have to do those unnecessary procedures just because they feared lawsuits. Think of the amounts that would be saved and revenues lost by hospitals? Those benefits could be passed on to the consumer, of course. Why wouldn't the powerful medical lobby push for this simple reform?
The State of New York has already taken your advice. The Plaintiff, through her Attorney, cannot proceed with the suit unless the Attorney submits either an Affidavit of Merit (based on a consult with another Doctor) or an affidavit stating that the Attorney tried, in bona fide, to get a consult with three different Doctors, and was refused three times.
The real kicker with the Affidavit of Merit is that by signing one, the Attorney has to put his License on the line and attest to the truth of the statements. You lie in an affidavit, you lose the Keys to the Kingdom, or at least you're supposed to.
<rant type=_uncaffeinated intensity=82%>
All this lawyer-hate that's floating around the thread casts too broad a net. The ethical rules of our Profession are actually quite strict; the problem is that most of my Brethren, blinded by greed, flagrantly ignore them. Instead, the Rules are used to punish those who piss off entrenched interests; they are used as a political weapon. It's disgusting.
The cheating, lying, scumbag shysters we all love to hate have taken a noble, learned Profession and sacrificed it on the foul altar of Industrial Capitalism. One who lies and cheats to satisfy their greed does not deserve the title "Attorney and Counselor at Law". I'm with y'all on that point; a hundred of those two-faced hacks at the bottom of the ocean would be a good start. But not all Attorneys are like that; there are still good people in this Business, who do good work in the service of the People. We try to push logical, fair rules like the one mentioned above. We stand in defense of Citizens when the terrible power of the State is unleashed against them. We fight to make sure that the Constitution isn't reduced to a Goddamn piece of paper.
So y'all lawyer-haters need to step the fuck off.
</rant>
U r a f@@king lawyer. piss off.
Fight the good fight for as long as you can, but thanks for confirming that fraud is the status quo. I think we all know how this turn out. Nothing changes until we get total collapse. Only then will compensation return to people who are actually worth a shit (in any profession).
Like Rule 11 for State courts? Most states already have this. I'm talking about a medical professional signing a declaration that, as the case may be, attests that the health care professional defendant failed to meet the standard of care for the defendant's specialty.
But this will never be passed because this narrative of the shyster lawyer shaking down the town doctor that spends his vacation in Africa sewing up cleft palates benefits the defense bar and the medical profession equally.
What a piece of shit this is. Did the pension guy, Leo, write this, eh?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBKRjxeQnT4
Where to begin?
40% of malpractice suits are frivolous. How does the colorful chart arrive at this conclusion? What determines a frivolous suit?
$50 billion spent on unnecessary tests to protect against lawsuits? Wait, it is unimaginable that health care professionals may perform needless tests to churn insurance and then cite as justification that they are doing it for the purposes of protecting themselves from potential liability?
In the purportedly rising malpractice case verdicts, why not also mention how general damages caps probably reduce the amount of awards, and special damage awards are directly related to the rising cost of health care and projected future heath care plaintiff may receive? I would venture that if you projected the rising costs of health care along with the verdicts, you'd see parody.
Some of those 2 out of 5 patients that stop taking medication because they heard about some lawsuit might have saved their own lives. And all 5 of those patients were prescribed medication they needed in the first place, of course.
BLS stats are shat upon when they don't fit an argument, but lauded when they do?
Maybe a nice piece of propaganda by the AMA, hmmmm?
Hey, sure, say the doctors, we're screwing you alright, but we're doing it only because of the lawyers! Make them stop and you'll save billions and billions! We swear we'll pass the savings on to you. We'll stop ordering "unnecessary" tests that just coincidentally make money for us and our buddies. We'll stop unnecessarily prescribing high-priced medications, performing unecessary surgeries, ineffective treatments and so on.
The medical profession, which owns and controls the American medical system virtually lock, stock and barrel, is the "caring about people" version of the banksters.
Now they're crying like Hank Paulson that if we don't rein in the only guys who hold them accountable we're facing the melt down of "our" precious medical system.
Well said. These powerful interests have convinced the majority of the sheep that the sheep need to give up their rights in order to have affordable health care. Meanwhile, states like Texas who have implemented draconian tort reform, see their health care costs continue to rise right along with the rest of the nation. Amazing how many otherwise smart and well-read people buy into this nonsense that "tort reform" is the answer to our nation's woes. Sure there could be improvements to the system, but why any consumer/patient would want to give up the right to seek compensation when wronged, just to increase the profits of an arelady bloated insurance and healthcare industry, is beyond me.
"the sheep need to give up their rights in order to have affordable health care. "
Let's say the sheep give up their rights. Then all of the "savings" will accrue directly to the sheep, right? LOL.
The health care system is broken. Until it is fixed, USA economy will not work.
I can tell you a significant percentage of lawsuits is business against business. Patent troll litigation has risen exponentially as well.
Also, insurance companies are among the worst offenders. Pay good money for a policy. Then when it's time to pay, insurance company refuses to pay, denies coverage, or comes up with the most absurd "exceptions" to void coverage. You are guaranteed a lowball estimate, forcing you to litigate significant claims. I see this frequently. If the insurance company can screw you out of a few dollars, all the better: goes right into the executives' pockets.
I don't like wasteful litigation, but litigation is a symptom of U.S. business culture: screw the average Amercian as much as you can and pocket the cash. Violating the law and paying settlements is simply the cost of doing business for these vultures.
Sequitur
100% agreement.
No mention in the article about Monsanto lawyers suing and threatening farmers over GMO patents.
No mention of all the government lawyers waging the new counter-productive Prohibition war against 'drugs', and all the corresponding defense lawyers.
No mention of all the government legal eagles advocating government secrecy and Patriot Act intrusions.
No mention how the highway free-for-all, intoxicated drivers, lack of affordable public health care, and cost-conscious insurance companies all combine to promote litigation.
Yeah, there are plenty of 'frivolous' lawsuits, but the worst of them seem ultimately to be caused by the folks above, and not wantonly by the folks below.
Truly insightful. Even the "good guys" like to use lawyers. Whodathunkit?
Let's add in all the lawyers who twist up the constitution to justify whatever policy TPTB wants.
And not just "twist",
many of the laws at the federal and state levels are written up by corporate lobbyist /lawyers.