Oxymoron.
The attorney is. Believe it or not, there are good, honest, PI attorneys, they just all have a bad rep. My boss has done a lot of pro-bono work, and more often than not gives a fee reduction to increase the settlement to the client.
There are a lot of poor, uneducated people who do not know their rights and are prey for insurance companies that try to make them sign a release for pennies when they have genuine injuries and no means to obtain treatment, if they can even find a provider who will treat them. Many won't.
I felt the same way you do before I started working there.
More often than not, folks who are seriously injured have no recourse due to the fact that the responsible party has no, or minimal, insurance and they do not qualify for the freebies our government offers. I know scores of people whose lives have been turned upside down due to their injuries. Some injuries have no treatment and they have to live their lives in pain. Not to mention the financial problems they face if they have ANY sort of physical employment/obligations, which most people do.