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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Rules Of Professional Responsibility And Legal Finance: A Status Update, Anthony J. Sebok
The Rules Of Professional Responsibility And Legal Finance: A Status Update, Anthony J. Sebok
Articles
Legal finance occurs when strangers fund litigation for profit. Traditionally looked upon with suspicion in the common law, and limited by the doctrines of champerty and maintenance, legal finance is now a thriving part of the American legal landscape. Legal finance has been promoted as a solution to the access-to-justice problems facing working and middle class Americans, as well as a new asset class for Wall Street. At the center of legal finance, however, are lawyers – not the lawyers who write the contracts for the financing – but the lawyers for the cases being financed.
Over the past decade, …
Anatomy Of An Aggregate Settlement: The Triumph Of Temptation Over Ethics, Lester Brickman
Anatomy Of An Aggregate Settlement: The Triumph Of Temptation Over Ethics, Lester Brickman
Articles
In an aggregate settlement, usually of a mass tort claim, a defendant agrees to pay a specific dollar amount to be divided up by the lawyer among her multiple clients which may number in the hundreds and even thousands. Each client, therefore, is in competition with all of the lawyer’s other clients suing the same defendant for a share of the fixed sum. Rule 1.8(g) of the ABA Rules of Professional Conduct requires that each client give their informed consent to their allocation. To facilitate the settlement and the often quite substantial contingency fees to be earned, lawyers may mislead …
Ethical Issues In Asbestos Litigation, Lester Brickman
Ethical Issues In Asbestos Litigation, Lester Brickman
Articles
Asbestos litigation has given rise to over 50,000,000 claims against 8400 former producers, distributors, installers and sellers of asbestos-containing products. To date, 850,000 claimants have sought compensation, costing businesses and insurance companies over $70 billion and resulting in more than 70 bankruptcies. Over 100,000 deaths are attributable to asbestos exposure with an additional 40,000 deaths anticipated over the next 30 years. Despite the significance of the ethical issues generated by the processes of acquiring, pressing and settling the most massive litigation in history, the legal literature is substantially devoid of any such discussion. One possible reason for this paucity of …
Aba Regulation Of Contingency Fees: Money Taks, Ethics Walks, Lester Brickman
Aba Regulation Of Contingency Fees: Money Taks, Ethics Walks, Lester Brickman
Articles
No abstract provided.
Living With The Ban On Nonrefundable Retainers: Cooperman's Scope, Meaning And Consequences, Lester Brickman, Lawrence A. Cunningham
Living With The Ban On Nonrefundable Retainers: Cooperman's Scope, Meaning And Consequences, Lester Brickman, Lawrence A. Cunningham
Articles
No abstract provided.
The Fall And Rise Of The Criminal Contingent Fee, Peter Lushing
The Fall And Rise Of The Criminal Contingent Fee, Peter Lushing
Articles
No abstract provided.