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Don't kill the lawyers, just the frivolous lawsuits
© St. Petersburg Times Please indulge me in a little more discussion about the role of lawyers and lawsuits in our society. On Monday I wrote that the Florida Bar, instead of waging a $750,000 public relations campaign to improve the image of lawyers, would do better to crack down on frivolous and rapacious lawsuits. That observation generated an explosive reaction. Critics of the legal profession cried out in agreement, saying, more or less: "Yes, let's kill all the lawyers." The nicest thing that the lawyers said was that I was being simplistic and overlooking all the good that they do. But please, I did not mean for it to be an all-or-nothing proposition. I merely suggested we should consider more punishment for lawsuits that are judged to be frivolous. We need to change our cultural belief -- to be followed by changes in our law and our rules of court -- that every bad event in life justifies a lawsuit. That is not "anti-lawyer" and it is not "anti-lawsuit." It is pro-common sense. I heard from several lawyers who are proud of what they do. Some of them help people adopt kids. Some help people plan their estates. Some help people who have been cruelly cheated. Who would argue that citizens are not entitled to hire lawyers for those purposes? That is not the target here. My specific complaint deals with the area of civil liability, and those lawyers (and their clients) who see the world as a chance to cash in. Even in that arena, lawyers defend their role. Some even see themselves as heroes, as crusaders out to improve the world. Lawyers argued to me that if it weren't for lawsuits, our cars would be more dangerous, our homes less safe, our nursing homes more deadly, our environment more polluted. I would be more sympathetic to this concept of lawyers as crusaders if they were not raking in a big chunk of the take along the way. Lawyers say that contingency fees provide the "incentive" for seeking justice in our courts. I say they create a shopping spree for potential plaintiffs. With a few exceptions, the legal system has not excelled in this area. The exceptions include mediation programs and a commendable effort in family-law court to resolve more divorces without full-scale war. But in the main, legal obstacles to unfounded lawsuits are rarely enforced by courts. Judges are, after all, creatures of the Bar, dependent upon their standing among lawyers. Several lawyers argued to me that frivolous claims are properly sorted out by the system. This proves to them that the system "works." But that blithely ignores the fact that somebody had to spend time and money to defend them in the first place. Besides, many civil claims are settled with cash payments before trial, even if the claim is defensible. It is insurance companies, not defendants, that call the shots. Any system that relies on cash payments to make baseless claims "go away" is not a system that "works." It is a system that encourages the filing of lawsuits in the way one might buy a lottery ticket. A few lawyers concluded I must be in the pocket of big corporations that want to get rid of lawsuits. Wrong. In no way do I endorse or support the so-called "tort reform" law that has been passed by the Florida Legislature. Tort reform in Florida is a lie -- it is a law that protects big corporations from being sued when they hurt little people. I would rather work on the other end of the spectrum, the impact that Wild West lawsuits have on little people -- small-practice doctors, mom-and-pop businesses, homeowners. Lastly, for the record, so lawyers will quit accusing me of being ignorant, I am perfectly aware of the context of the original "kill the lawyers" quote. It comes from Shakespeare (2 Henry VI, Act IV, Scene 2), in which there is a conspiracy to establish a dictatorship. The plotters are boasting about how they will make everybody bow down to them. That is when one of the conspirators chimes in, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." His goal was to destroy the law, so that the citizens would have no legal protection. I admit this freely. You will notice, however, that Shakespeare was silent on the question of a less drastic reform. -- You can reach Howard Troxler at (727) 893-8505 or at troxler@sptimes.com.
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Times columns today Howard Troxler Robert Trigaux Bill Maxwell John Romano From the Times Metro desk Howard Troxler |
