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

When a seller proclaims “you get what you pay for,” you can be

fairly certain he’s afraid of price competition — and knows his product

or service is over-priced (in relation to the skills needed to produce it

and the cost of its production).  So, I’m happy to see that Carolyn

Elefant put the spotlight on lower fees at MyShingle today, with her

discussion of The Brodsky Law Firm in New York City, which charges

$79 to $99 per hour for non-litigation matters.

Indeed, lawyer Brodsky sounds a lot like ethicalEsq: ..

“Fact: Most lawyers are too expensive.

“The typical New York lawyer charges $200-300 per hour,

and some actually charge $500-600/hour or more.  Sad but

true.

“We think that’s excessive (and other lawyers hate us for

saying so).  We believe that working people and small busines-

ses should not have to pay 10 to 20 times their own hourly wage

for quality legal representation.”

Carolyn is absolutely correct to worry about lawyers who seem to care

very little that most Americans are priced out of the market for legal

services.  Just yesterday, we mentioned this quote by Sol M. Linowitz,

from his book The Betrayed Profession, on the profession needing to

live up to its rhetoric of providing justice for all.

“[T]here is one area where few lawyers can avoid discomfort when looking at their profession.  The rhetoric of the profession has long insisted that our system is one of ‘justice for all,’ that our court must not ‘ration justice,’ but the visible truth is that we are not living up to our professed beliefs.”  [at 145]

We have also pointed to studies showing (1) that 80% or more of the legal needs of the poor and working poor currently are unmet in the United States. And, (2) “over 150 million citizens of the ‘Land of the Free’ are legally disenfranchised” from our expensive, inaccessible court system.

I agree with Brodsky that most of the legal needs of the average American rarely, if ever, require skills that warrant fees that “pay 10 to 20 times their own hourly wage.”   I disagree with Carolyn’s view that Brodsky “competes, proudly and flagrantly, on price alone.”  His pitch very much focuses on the fact that you needn’t sacrifice quality to get lower fees at his law firm — although you may have to give up fancy surroundings.  In addition to many testimonials on his service and dedication, the website asserts:

“That’s 70% lower than the average law firm, even though we have the same (or more) experience, the same (or better) education, and superior compassion & responsiveness.”

Carolyn is correct, though, that more information about the firm and its principal member would be very nice.  It took me some research to discover that Brodsky is “Steve Brodsky,” who is actually Steven Charles Brodsky, a graduate of Fordham Law School, and member of the NY Bar since 1997.

Also, I’ve never liked it when solos try to make their firm appear to have more than one lawyer.  If Steve has associates or partners, he should tell us about them, too.

Of course, I cannot vouch for the quality of the work at The Brodsky Law Firm. But, I can tell you that some of the very best and most dedicated lawyers I know have charged fees far below the average in their area — and become quite unpopular with their brethren at the bar when they do.

I’m happy to hear that Steve Brodsky is making fee levels an issue and I wish more lawyers would do so.

Oh-Oh-Ohio.  With that said, I’m sorry to have to tell you that — despite our call to arms —  the Ohio State Bar Association has recommended to the Ohio Supreme Court that the State’s revamped lawyer ethical rules be promulgated with the following Comment to proposed Rule 7.1:

4] Characterization of rates or fees chargeable by the lawyer or law firm such as “cut-rate,” “lowest,” “giveaway,” “below cost,” “discount,” or “special” is misleading.

[see Letter of Feb. 15, 2006, with attached Report.]  That’s right: discount advertising shall be deemed per se misleading. The Ohio Bar also recommended that the Supreme Court remove from the proposal of the Court’s rule-change Commission a provision that lawyers be required (for matters above $500) to communicate in writing with a client concerning the scope of engagement and the basis or rate of fees and expenses. [Proposed Rules 1.2(c) and 1.5(b)] See Your Editor’s Comments to the Ohio Supreme Court, on the above issues, here. [Note: Our efforts failed. The Ohio Bar included the ban on advertising discount fees in its recommendations to the Ohio Supreme Court, which included the provision in the Comment to Rule 7.1, which has been in effect since February 2007.]

Remember: Lawyer Lincoln Was a Bargain.  Where did all that goodwill go?

Poet-accountant paul m knows there are many things more important than profit:

mating antics

of a hummingbird

wind on the lake

shuttered room;

I enter

with tulips

one sail remains

on the old windmill

spring clouds

drifting seed fluff . . .

the rented horse

knows an hour’s worth

paul m

“mating antics” –   The Heron’s Nest (Dec. 2005)

“shuttered room” & “one sail remains” – finding the way (Press Here, 2002)

“drifting seed fluff” – inside the mirror: RMA 2005; The Heron’s Nest (June 2005)

Pape & Chandler‘s Pit Bull has a new fan: James J. Kilpatrick.

Asking, “How Do You Feel About Bulldogs?” (The Conservative

Voice, March 21, 2006). Kilpatrick describes the battle of the

Ft. Lauderdale motorcycle injury lawyers with the Florida Bar,

asking:

First question: How do you feel about trial lawyers?

 

Second question: How do you feel about pit bull dogs?

May the one breed lawfully adopt an image of the other?

 

 

The Supreme Court will step into this touchy question if it

agrees to hear an appeal brought by two Fort Lauderdale

lawyers against the Florida Bar.

Kilpatrick rightly notes that “Some close questions of First Amendment

law make it a tough case to call.”   However:

“The Florida lawyers are eloquently represented in the U.S. Supreme

Court by professor Rodney A. Smolla of the University of Richmond

School of Law. In his petition for review he argues persuasively that

lawyers should not be punished for advertising “that is not false,

fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading in any sense.” Good point. Is

the amorphous “dignity of the profession” an interest so overriding

that it trumps a First Amendment right of commercial speech? Good

question.”

Although noting that “Lawyers have had a tough time of it at least since Luke

wrote his gospel 2,000 years ago,” Kilpatrick concludes: 

 

                                                                                     Hoya Jack

“My own thought comes down to this: If I want to sue my doctor

for a botched operation, give me a pit bull lawyer every time. And

if I learn of his services on TV, so what? “

Of course, we’ve been covering this case in depth since May 2004. Here is

our discussion of the pretentious opinion of the Florida Supreme Court in

Florida Bar v. John Pape and Marc Chandler.  Two days ago, we posted

“pit bull logo taken down — do you feel more dignified?,” which includes

images of the Pape & Chandler masthead, with and without their Pit Bull

logo.  We have also preserved a P&C pit bull ad here.  

 

update (11:30 PM, March 21):  Marc Chandler just emailed me to say that

1) The Florida Bar waived its right to respond, and 2) the Supreme Court has

not requested a response.  We’re afraid that this makes it highly unlikely that

the case will make it to the “discuss list” and then be granted certiorari.  Let’s

hope miracles nonetheless happen.

 

“PitBullLogo”

 

runaway kite!

the dog also eyes it

restlesslly

 

     Kobayashi Issa

       translated by David G. Lanoue

 

 

p.s. Speaking of personal injury lawyers, we’re pleased to

say that the first two Google results, this morning, for the

query What Is An Appropriate Contingency Fee> were from

here and here at f/k/a – despite the insults of a certain dignified

p/i lawyer..   

                                                                                        here

 

My Referer Page came through again for me, today, just when

I needed to be distracted from those darn real-world, evil lawyers.

Someone (a “Sucher”) in Germany did eine Google Suche with the

query /are all lawyers trustworthy/. Did the querist expect a yes

or no answer? Well, er oder sie found neither here at f/k/a,

but instead got an excellent quote by Sol M. Linowitz, from his book

The Betrayed Profession, on the profession needing to live up to its

rhetoric of providing justice for all.

However, I don’t want to harp on Sol’s sermon. Instead, I want to

point you to an article that I found among the other Google results.

It’s a year old, but I haven’t seen it mentioned at other weblogs. It is

“Court TV’s 15 Most Memorable Movie Lawyers” (Hollywood Heat, by

Daniel Green, May 12, 2005.) It’s a great list, with interesting analysis,

plus quotes from a few lawyers and law professors about their favorite

film lawyers.

 

Although the Dignity Police certainly won’t agree, I concur with the #1 result:

 

 

1. Vincent Gambini (Joe Pesci) in “My Cousin Vinny” (1992).

The author notes:

“Best of all, he keeps the jury (and the audience) entertained

and focused. Last year, the Seventh Circuit Bar Association

voted Vinny’s opening trial statement (‘Uh, everything that guy

just said is bullshit. Thank you.’) as the best in movie lawyer

history. In the end, we’re inclined to agree with screenwriter

David Mamet, who once said of My Cousin Vinny, ‘I think

that s the best movie ever made, don t you?’ “

 

[Ed. Note: And paralegal Mona Lisa Vito was very memorable, too! Did you say “two yutes”?]

 

Here are the other results (go check out the discussion), with a few quotes that I particularly appreciated:

 

to kill a mockingbird

 

2. Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) in “To Kill A Mockingbird” (1962)

. . . “Atticus Finch was a genteel Southern lawyer. It was very

difficult to raise his ire to the level that’s needed today,” argues

attorney Mike Papantonio, author o the “In Search of Atticus

Finch: A Motivational Book for Lawyers.” “I don’t know if Atticus

Finch is relevant anymore.” Still, of all the lawyers Court TV

interviewed for this article, Peck’s portrayal was the performance

most often mentioned.

 

“I saw that film as a young kid,” recalls Scott A. Hughes, a

personal injury lawyer in Bellevue, Washington, “but it still rever-

berates.”

 

“Was that why you became a lawyer?”

 

“No,” Hughes admitted. “I became a lawyer to make money.”

 

3. Arthur Kirkland (Al Pacino) in “And Justice For All“ (1979)

. . . “Eighteen years later, Pacino portrayed a very different, much
less honorable type of lawyer in “The Devil’s Advocate.” In that film,
he played Satan, a partner in a successful New York firm.”

4. Charles W. Kingsfield, Jr (John Houseman) in “The Paper Chase“ (1973)

“He delivers probably the most famous line ever written about law school:
‘You teach yourselves the law. But I train your mind. You come in here
with a skull full of mush and you leave thinking like a lawyer’.”

the verdict

5. Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) in “The Verdict“ (1982)

“The practice of law, the real practice, is 99% paperwork. If they
ever made a movie about a lawyer and it was real, it would be 1,000
hours long, boring and no one would watch.”

– Steven Moss with Kahn Kleinman in Cleveland.

6 and 7. Tie: Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) and Matthew Harrison Brady (Frederic March) in “Inherit the Wind“ (1960)

8. Hans Rolfe (Maximilian Schell) in “Judgment at Nuremberg“ (1961)
9. Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) in “A Few Good Men“ (1992)

. 10. Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) in “Legally Blonde“ (2001)

“Susan Hitzig, a Manhattan real-estate attorney, said she connected with
Woods ‘because I was considered a dumb blonde too. She showed you
can be a good lawyer and not have to change your whole life around’.”

11. Paul Biegler (James Stewart) in “Anatomy Of A Murder“ (1959)

13. Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn) in “Adam’s Rib“ (1949) adam’s rib

“Hollywood is rarely kind to its female attorneys. Most are either incom-
petent (Demi Moore in “A Few Good Men“) or have sex with their client
(Glenn Close in “Jagged Edge“). Amanda Bonner, though, is smart, tough
and successful. . . . Bonner was certainly a nice role model for young
women interested in becoming lawyers, especially because she emerges
from the case [as criminal defense counsel vs. her ADA husband] triumphant.

14. Fletcher Reede (Jim Carrey) in “Liar Liar“ (1997)

15. George Simon (John Barrymore ) in “Counsellor at Law“ (1933)

Is your appetite whetted for more films about lawyers and the law? Seethe 700 titles (linked to summaries) at the Law in Popular Culture Collection of the Texas/Austin Tarlton Law Library.

wind-beaten marque
saying only
“Coming Soon”

summer day
a seat in the movies
away from others

matinee
the summer sun
under the exit door

 

…………. by John Stevenson
“wind-beaten marquee” – Some of the Silence (1999)
“matinee” – Quiet Enough (Red Moon Press, 2004)
“summer day” – Upstate Dim Sum (2004/II)

 

drive in movie…

opening our eyes

during the love scene

ed markowski

 

leaving the movies-
believing this world
is the real one

 

 

 

insomnia-
a screensaver glows
through a dark window

 

 

clouds seen

through clouds

seen through

 

 

 

jim kacian

“leaving the movies–” & “insomnia–” – World Haiku Assn.

“clouds seen” – The Haiku Anthology (3rd Ed.); Six Directions (1997)

the paper chase

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)