Lawstudents.ca

Why is it that students in law schools and posters on sites like this often seem to look at personal injury lawyers with such disdain and refer to them as "ambulance chasers"? What is it about personal injury lawyers as a group that is seen as so inherently bad or unscrupulous?

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with helping people who have been injured, and often have very little sophistication when it comes to legal matters and limited financial resources, to get a fair deal from large insurance corporations which often try to avoid living up to their contractual obligations to save money.

It seems to be implied that personal injury lawyers are the only group who has members who do less than completely ethical things in the course of practice. Are corporate lawyers all a bunch of ethical angels? Come on! Is working for a big firm to help maximize the bottom line of large corporations more honourable than representing injured people?

Maybe it stems from the fact that personal injury lawyers advertise to the public and this is seen as wrong or unethical, but is really because of the nature of the clientele that they serve (as opposed to corporate clients which probably don't select their lawyers out of the yellow pages).

Maybe it's based on some degree of jealousy that some other lawyers feel because of the amount that successful personal injury lawyers can make.

To me this seems like nothing more than a form of intra-professional bigotry and stereotyping, and I for one think it needs to stop.

Thoughts?

To say you are worked up about this issue would be an understatement.

...and this is really unfair because other areas of law don't have any negative stereotypes associated with them, right?

DDD,

I was the one who made the comment, and by it I didn't mean anything. Perhaps this is akin to using a racist slur in jest while completely not being a racist. It is wrong.

Just to clarify things: personal injury, although not of interest to me, is an absolute necessity in our world. Do I feel they are unethical? No. Do I hold anything against their clientele because of their "nature"? No.

I just want to clarify this because it seems to have been taken in a more serious sense than I imagined. Personal injury is a lucrative, interesting field. It just isn't for me. I hold a greater interest in other aspects of law, period.

I actually find that real estate lawyers seem to have the same negative stereotype.

Okay, you asked, so here's an answer. Negative feelings towards personal injury lawyers generally stem from one of or a combination of the following:

1. Most lawyers practicing PI are doing so because they couldn't find more prestigious or lucrative work. In other words, they are often bottom of the barrel law graduates.

2. As a rule the work is NOT lucrative, per above. Suggestions of jealousy not withstanding. Yes, some lawyers do very well at it, just as some restaurants succeed and make a barrel of cash. But most restaurants still fail within six months and most PI lawyers just chug along making a fairly modest income, living uncertainly at the mercy of the next (hopefully) big pay off on contingency.

3. Yes, PI lawyers help vulnerable clients. Some may be very well motivated. Others simply become a new class of vulture preying on the vulnerable clients.

4. A fair percentage of PI claims are absolute bullshit - and this percentage is only fluffed by PI lawyers who are desperate for files and clients. So in contrast to much other client work involving vulnerable people, this area of law often involves manufactured issues. A poor client who is getting evicted or is charged with a crime, no matter how unsympathetic or fucked up or strung out on crack, is still getting evicted or prosecuted and needs help with that. A poor client, in similar situations, with a suspicious whiplash claim is potentially just a bullshit artist with no real issue at all.

Those are the big four I can think of. Add PI advertising practices, if you like, but those practices are mainly an extension of the last point. You get the kind of client you advertise to, after all.

Note, btw, that none of these points apply universally. There are exceptions to every stereotype, after all. But stereotypes don't exist because they are perfect - they only need to be somewhat true. And even I'll admit all of these points are somewhat true, and I have a good friend who does PI.

Also note, I'm answering you mainly to see how nuts you'll go after hearing all your worse fears confirmed. But that's okay, just keep telling yourself that really we're all just jealous of how much money you'll someday make.

Diplock,

I'm glad you clarified the type of bigotry and stereotyping that I was talking about. There's no need for the personal dig at the end, you have no idea what my fears are and I didn't say I was planning on practicing in this area myself. I just think that these kind of attitudes, based on largely untrue and exaggerated claims, make the whole profession look bad and should be something we all strive rise to eliminate.

Imagine if someone on here posted a bunch of reasons why racists have negative feelings toward a certain race and then listed 4 stereotypes that are the basis of those feelings, followed by a statement that stereotypes only need to be partially true and that they believe they are somewhat true.

For much of the reasoning you have listed, you have no way of possibly knowing if it were based on any truth (for example, "Most lawyers practicing PI are doing so because they couldn't find more prestigious or lucrative work"). This is the same mechanism by which other discriminatory beliefs have been perpetuated over the years.

Don't you think as lawyers we should hold ourselves and our colleagues to a higher standard than a bunch of racists?

To be clear, I'm not trying to call anyone names or call anyone out, I'm just frustrated and disappointed with the use of such stereotypes by a bunch of educated professionals.

For instance, if PI lawyers really were "bottom of the barrel law graduates", which is obviously a ridiculous generalization, would it be ok to denigrate our fellow graduates just because they couldn't get top-tier grades like us? If they really aren't making much money, why would anyone else care what their grades were in law school?

As for the bullshit, frivolous claims, that is not something that is unique to personal injury within the realm of litigation, and probably is not as common as american tv would have us believe, because busy lawyers don't want to waste their time on a claim that is potentially a loser, especially when working on contingency.

It is also difficult to agree with the notion of PI lawyers taking advantage of vulnerable clients because most of them would not be able to afford to make any claim at all were it not for lawyers willing to bear the financial risks by taking the case on contingency.

PropJay,

I really didn't have that much of a problem with your post, it was more a cumulative effect of posts on other boards like Lawbuzz and ignorant-sounding things I've heard people say at school in this regard. Obviously, from Diplock's post, you can see that there are real negative feelings about lawyers in this area of practice.

I wasn't trying to single you out, you seem like a fairly reasonable person.

Hurt in a Car? Call William Mattar!

To understand the dynamics a bit better, I would suggest reading Marc Galanter's article "Why the 'Haves' Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the limits of legal change."

As I mentioned in the other discussion on this topic, this is largely an American phenomenon, and not simply on TV. It's also not a term used for all lawyers with a PI practice, but rather those who actually 'chase' this type of work. Hence, the origin of the term. The "hurt in a car?" post is exactly the type of lawyer this term describes. Cellino & Barnes are two more. Remember that upstanding citizen and presidential candidate John Edwards? Yet another. Unlike in Canada, in most jurisdictions in the U.S., this type of lawyer has little/nothing to lose by taking these cases because there is no possibility of having to pay costs for a frivolous lawsuit, thus there is no downside. Many of the class action lawyers in the U.S. should be considered in the same category as the ambulance chasers.

I think Erin hits upon the actual issue here, which is the difference between a lawyer who does PI work and an "ambulance chaser". All PI lawyers are not ambulance chasers, but all ambulance chasers are by definition PI lawyers.

As well, I doubt anyone actually means what they say about PI work, and it wouldn't form the basis of an opinion of the worth of the individual doing it. Opinions about those who work as "ambulance chasers" are those that inure to the lawyer because of their specific activities, not simply because they do PI work. So lighten up just a little bit.

hahahaha. Nice.

Although its easy to say that the term and stereotypes only apply to some lawyers in the field who 'chase' the work, it is clear from the attitudes illustrated by Diplock that they are used by some within our profession to paint the whole group (or at least "most") of PI lawyers with the same brush and not make distinctions. The phenomenon you allude to may be something that primarily occurs in the US, but these attitudes are widespread within our own legal profession and student bodies right here in Canada.

Also, it is important to look at what we mean by 'chase' work and what is at the heart of the animosity, even if we decide to only apply it to select practitioners rather than the whole group. I doubt that there are any lawyers out there who actually get in their car and follow ambulances around, so what do we mean? It does seems to get back to the advertising used by certain firms which triggers this animosity among our peers. Why else would Cellino and Barnes or William Mattar be referenced? I doubt any of us know much about those firms beyond what we have seen on their tv ads.

I think we should keep in mind that although some of these ads seem pretty cheesy, especially to a more educated crowd like this board, advertising to the public is an absolutely essential means to inform the people who need these legal services where to get them and when they may need them in order to exercise their legal rights. If not for some type of advertising in this field of law, not only would the viability of many law firms be hindered, but access to justice for a large number of vulnerable people would also be impaired.

That being said, I do think a touch more professionalism in the content of some advertising would be good for all.

Brevity. Look into it.

Its fine to advertise that legal services are available, its another thing to fill advertisements with "testimonials" about how such and such lawyer got such and such person "ten times more than the insurance company would pay me" or X amount of money with only the tiniest disclaimer at the bottom which states that no guarantee of success of amounts of money can be given. Again, to those sophisticated in law we know that when someone say that they got such and such amount of money for someone else that is meaningless, but the reason they do this is to suggest that similar success is possible for anyone that walks through the door. Thats the problem I have (and the difference) with ambulance chasers.

And dude, seriously, relax.

I haven't been in the profession too long, but I'm fairly certain PI law is held in quite low regard across the board. Primarily for the reasons Diplock listed.

Some PI lawyers serve a useful purpose I'm sure, but those are limited examples in a field rife with hucksters and scam artists.

My sympathies are with ddd (not merely because of his/her very lengthy posts...); many people look down on lawyers, so lawyers like to look down on PI lawyers.

Of course there are bad PI lawyers - and bad insurance defence lawyers, wills and estates lawyers (using undue influence), corporate lawyers (let's see how the LSUC ethics hearing re the Tory's lawyers and Hollinger/Black turn out...), etc. I don't see the generalized comments being made about those groups, though. But because there are some U.S. ads they don't like, some lawyers/wannabe lawyers/law students jump to conclusions. The worst (most unethical/skirting the line) lawyers I ever dealt with were general practitioners, but I don't stretch my dislike to cover the field. Do people not understand the evidential weakness of "here are three PIs who are bad, plus people don't like 'ambulance chasers', so most of them must be bad"?

The lawyers I've met at CLE who did PI law seemed dedicated and principled (same with the lawyers who did insurance defence, there are actually some who get along with those on the "other side"...). Same with class action lawyers.

Note: I never practiced PI (I practiced mostly IP, and have even done some insurance defence work in the past, so I've done the reverse of PI in multiple senses...). I find most lawyer jokes funny, but when people start taking stereotypes too seriously, it's a problem. Indeed, most of the lawyers I've met who graduated from U of T were quite pleasant, and most of the lawyers I've met who graduated from Windsor were quite competent.

One of the SCC justices came to UBC in my second year. This "pre-law" undergrad asked a nine minute question about what makes a good litigator. The Justice's answer: Brevity...

I only read the first exchange between diplock and DDD, and then I got bored. As I am already a supreme court judge on planet Xargon (in the Perutriewian galaxy) I have authority on this sort of thing.

The truth is that all Lawyers suck. That is why so many uphold laws regarding human rights and fair play and what not. It's not cause they give a crap about anybody but themselves, it's because if they didn't defend the legal system, they'd be the absolute first to go. But for some reason it kind of works out for everybody, at least maybe 51% of the time, so people keep the Legal Profession and Lawyers around. The type of Law doesn't really matter. Corporate, PI, Child Services, Criminal...whatever. Cream of the crop grades wise, bottom of the barrel ethics wise, whatever. Grades are subjective, ethics are subjective, we are all institutionalized nothings, and the institution is us, so what do we make it? Flags. I dunno. Nothing. All in meaningless so we keep breathing because why not? And then BOOM a paycheck comes, and one out of a hundred lawyers do something absolutely amazing that only a Lawyer could have done and the whole profession justifiable pats themselves on the back and says this is the community that I am part of in whatever strange way I am. Even the greediest, even the most selfless, all in the undercurrents of the hypnotic swirl of morality and ethics and religion and money standing in a of a golden shack in an envied ghetto underneath a shifting sky.

What?

When you stop tripping balls I suggest you come back and read what you just wrote and edit it accordingly.

Most of the crucial points have been made on this subject, but I'd just echo and amplify what Erin was saying; the stereotype of the ambulance chaser is an American phenomenon. There are so many lawyers in the United States per capita that there is a whole class of them that simply have no work. Some, having attended a law school of such ill repute that little other work is available, have little alternative but to make their money by telling any injured person that they have a case. They then set up a hybrid contingency arrangement (whereby the lawyer can keep, say, 30% of the award if successful or $2,000 if not) and go to work.

There are a few reasons why this has led to a negative reputation for these particular PI practitioners. Some people think the contingency rates are punishingly high in the States, ensuring that the lawyer will get almost as much as the actual injured party (which I'm not quite so upset about), while others take issue with the fact that these lawyers are comfortable taking their 30% fee even when victory was assured and they only needed to do two hours' work in order to arrange a settlement with the insurance company. In a clear-fault motor vehicle injury that paralyses its victim, some find it unethical that a pro forma application to an insurance company taking less than an afternoon could net the lawyer upwards of $100,000 at the expense of the suffering party.

In the event they are not successful, however, Diplock's point stands. There are many PI practitioners in the States that have hybrid arrangements whereby even if the case is lost the victim still must pay some legal fees. The 'vulture' aspect comes out when lawyers tell people they have a case, when they don't. The victim, believing her lawyer, agrees to the arrangement. The lawyer then does very little work on the case, lose as they expected to lose, and demand that the victim pay their fees as arranged.

This phenomenon is much less prevalent in Canada, as we actually have a shortage of lawyers. Rather than overcharging people that only have a small case (or taking on clients with no case at all), it's often the case here that real victims with good claims simply can't get represented if their case is too complex or the reward too small. There are just too many people with catastrophic injuries on waiting lists for all of our PI lawyers to get around to every slip-and-fall.

Dude, whatever you're smoking, pass it here (or don't...I like my brain cells intact)...

I was watching the show "American Greed" a few weeks ago and the episode was about an incident that as someone on the show said "helped give P.I. lawyers a bad name", it was pretty crazy. Basically a small firm in the southern U.S. with 3 partners won a $200 million dollar settlement for people adversely effected by a drug that led to long-term health problems with high medical bills. The firm was entitled to a 30% contingency fee, where the partners would each take home multiple millions. But the lawyers decided that wasn't enough and shortchanged the people in the lawsuit (giving them a fraction of the amount they were entitled to) to put more money in their pockets, they bought racehorses, country club memberships, cars, houses, etc. They set up fake "charities" to funnel cash into their pockets, all sorts of stuff. They got caught in the end, one lawyer got acquited arguing he was an alcoholic, the other two got 20+ years in prison.

the transcript from the show is here...
http://www.livedash.com/transcript/amer ... 10/200394/

Greetings all.

I will be starting 1L this coming fall - I've been lurking in here long enough to realize that comments range from the critical opinion, to sarcasm and irony, to just plain rude. Oh well. In the event my sanity is challenged, I'm also making my move to Law at the ripe age of 39 - call it my midlife crisis. I'm leaving behind a 20 year career as a Paramedic - currently a Deputy Chief in a mid-size municipality. I've enjoyed this thread quite a bit, because the pejorative anecdotal equivalent of the ambulance chaser:personal injury lawyer relationship is the ambulance driver:paramedic comparison. While one minimizes the importance of the role and imparts an image of some kind of bottom-feeder, to say the least, the other is the more professional, coveted and valuable image (albeit Paramedicine is a vocational endeavour). In any event - at least with light-hearted quips, I've found myself accepting the taunt that I am giving up being an Ambulance Driver to become an Ambulance chaser; whatever that means. Similarly, in the medical field, a cardiovascular surgeon seems to be pretty high up in the food chain, while a dermatologist or proctologist might not get the same recognition for his or her value, given that they are pimple fixers and deal with an issue that everyone has (an anus).....so they are often on the receiving end of jokes about never having to be on call or work weekends to get that nice pay cheque. But if you had a skin fungus, or a bum-problem, (or worse - a fungus on your toosh) I'll bet you would prefer to see the dermatologist or proctologist (as the case may be) and not the heart surgeon.

I like the observations that some of you have made to the effect that it is lawyers in general (moreso than specific areas of practice) that are the brunt of politically incorrect sarcasm and euphemisms about their value to society. Maybe I'm naive; though I am cautiously optimistic in my view that there are people who are out there who need a good personal injury lawyer just as much as there are businesses and corporations who need commercial and corporate lawyers; prestige issues notwithstanding. I've certainly seen cases where people who have experienced severely debilitating and life-changing events have faced significant obstacles through their private insurance companies, and even at a provincial and federal levels (i.e. obtaining CPP benefits, provincial benefits, etc...). The flip side - some of those 'ambulance chasers' can certainly use their talents to advocate for solutions that restore financial security and even dignity. So I'll toss my (as yet) legally un-educated opinion, supplement it with the experience I do have, and chalk up the view of ambulance chasers as little more than an internal prestige rivalry with sarcasm that feeds on a popular public perception of "lawyers" that arose from (among other sources) some rather comical American style personal injury lawyer ads.

Where would the old Seinfield TV series be without a few good skits that bring in the Johnny Cochrane-like spoof depicting lawyers as ready to dramatically sue for any cause?

To be quite honest I have never heard anyone actually say ambulance chaser while in law school.

Hmm.

I would have expected better from you. Allow me to present an alternative opinion:

1. I know a number of PI lawyers who did fantastically well in lawschool, studied at Oxford and Cambridge, and had great academic records. In fact one of them was just appointed to the Newmarket bench last week. Your suggestion that PI lawyers are bottom of barrel graduates is simply untrue.

2. I am unaware of any reliable information about the average earnings of PI lawyers available to the public. Have you seen any, or are you just saying you know both enough of these lawyers and about their practise that you can come to these conclusions based on your personal experience.

3. Other than use of the word "vulture" I have no idea what this is supposed to add, other than your opinion. Are you suggesting that PI lawyers are somehow ethically worse than other types of counsel?

4. You seem to think that PI lawyers actually manufacture claims. I am afraid that is not how it works. Clients call us, come in, tell us how they got hurt and how badly hurt they are. Sometimes they lie to us, sometimes they lie to their doctors. But in the modern litigation environment we sure arn't running around trying to find marginal claims to pump disbursements into (we do contingency remember?) for almost no ROI.

It is surprising that your comments show such a profound lack of knowledge of how our part of the industry works.

Russ

this thread is like herpes... it just won't go away

Yeah, this thread really won't die. But I feel like I should answer Russ. He's more than earned it.

1. PI isn't unique the factors that I've identified. It's very entrepreneurial. People often working solo or in smaller firms. Other practice areas are like this. But in any area where folks are driven into small and solo practice there's a lot of lawyers who fall into it for lack of options (they are members of the bar but uncompetitive on the labour market) just as there are some who genuinely love it. I acknowledge PI must have its share of the later as well as the former, but it's still a real dynamic.

2. I can't claim I know what PI lawyers make as a class. The people I know who work in the field aren't cleaning up but then Canada doesn't really have starving lawyers. I don't mean to imply they are struggling badly - I was more answering the OP's assertion that people make fun of PI out of jealousy for their fat paycheques.

3. Again, partly answering the OP and engaging in running dialogue. I don't mean to say all PI lawyers are vultures. But others were asserting there's something admirable about their willingness to help the poor and vulnerable and I'm not sure about that either. Cheque cashing services help the poor. They aren't altruistic about it. While PI lawyers may be scrupulous their client base is not a stamp of moral righteousness. For vultures, see below.

4. When it comes to PI yes - I think there is more manufacturing of claims in this area than in most. When a family lawyer is contacted by a client in the midst of divorce there's no question that there's a divorce. There must, therefore, be a case and a file. When a criminal defense lawyer is contacted by someone charged with a crime there is, again, certain to be a case and a file. When a PI lawyer is contacted by someone with a minor injury claim or a complaint of uncertain origin ... there isn't necessarily a real case at all. Only the wish of one. And I'm not convinced all PI lawyers are as ethical about screening for merit as they should be.

Note, finally, that this thread was always about stereotypes and these are not confined to Ontario or to Canada. The points I've made apply much more to legal culture in the U.S. than in Canada, but of course that culture does infiltrate here as well. I also believe much of it is true on a lower level.

Heh... trust me, they're more common than you might think

Possibly the people you are talking to simply narrowly define personal injury law to refer only to the law firms they see advertised on TV and sensational examples of personal injury litigation such as McDonalds coffee cups and fat people suing the fast food industry.

Also, from reading Abovethelaw, I know that the only lawyers ever on the Bachelor and other similar type shows are personal injury lawyers who are employed at their father's firms. Possibly that factors into the negativity?

I don't think anyone who really thinks about it is dismissive of personal injury lawyers. I think (or hope) you'd be hard pressed to find anyone for instance who is opposed to work being done in residential school claims.

BTW if anyone had a bad rep when I was in law school, it was legal aid lawyers.

Quoting my torts prof on the very first day of law school:
"I know that right now many of you have aspirations of being world saving pro bono or environmental lawyers, and that's great. But at the end of the day, many of you will make your bread and butter chasing ambulances, and that's what tort law is all about!"


As to the reputation itself, well remember that the general public only thinks there's three types of lawyers. Criminal, family, and litigation. Criminal lawyers are morally bankrupt, in with the mob, and keep murderers and rapists on the streets. All litigators seem to fall under the umbrella insult of "ambulance chaser." Divorce attorneys get away without the same negative connotation, but they're entirely perceived as attack-dogs for the bitter feuds between divorcees.

The "bottom barrel" source is also very much present in the US. Remember that they have in the neighbourhood of a thousand law schools, whereas we have more like a dozen. Even if class sizes are the same (though I'd guess they're larger in the states), that means that there's at least 10x as many lawyers per capita in the states as here. Most graduates from the bottom schools are locked out of the more prestigious firms and practice areas, leaving them with the ones where they can make do on their own (and without the help of a degree worth the paper it was printed on). That leaves practice areas dealing with the general public, ie criminal, family, wills & estates, and tort. Of these, Tort law (specifically personal injury) likely has the greatest opportunity for fledgling lawyers to carve themselves a practice out of.

There may be 10x the lawyers, but also 10x the population. I would think the ratios of lawyers would be similar. Actually, I think the ratios would favour a higher percentage of corporate lawyers in the States considering the monopoly they have over world finance and big business.

I don't think that the ratio is similar. I haven't seen figures in a while but from what I recall, the number of lawyers per capita in the U.S. is close to twice what it is in Canada.

You are wrong. It is like 25x the lawyers for 10x the population. Google the figures.

The amount of high end finance/big business work in the states does not increase lawyers by 250%+.