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A much more typical case is the child, whose doctor did everything he could, that suffers a serious result from illness or injury. The parents are solicited by an attorney. The parents are convinced to sue the doctor, "Since he won't pay anyway, the insurance company will. Nothing personal, you understand.". And the insurance company does settle because the cost of litigation exceeds the the amount of settlement. The attorney gets 30-50% of the settlement.

Your attitude is so typical of FReepers...actually, your "typical case" is atypical. In medmal cases, parents are not "talked into" suing....wanna know why? Because medmal cases are very, very, very expensive to work up and try...$25k for the smallest of them. As a plaintiff lawyer, I routinely rejected cases that I valued under $100k...to much risk, not enough reward....if I am putting up $25k of my money, I want reasonable assurances that I will make some money back.

Here in PA, an insurance company can not settle without consent of the doctors, so small cases are tried at exorbant costs.

And I still do not see why FReepers are so hung up on contingent fee agreements. First, it is bargained for....if you don't want to pay that much, then find a lawyer that will charge less (just remember, you get what you pay for). Second, the fee is not that much when you figure that the lawyer has the most at risk going into trial.

Tort reform is not a "conservative" position.....tort reform exists in the courts with judges and juries...they are merely doing what the Founding Fathers have told them to do. Having government step in to "protect" the insurance companies is just absurd.

The "founding fathers" were not lawyers in our twentieth-century understanding of the term. They "read for the law" because it was the educated and upper-class-bourgeois thing to do. It also put them in line for positions with administration for the King.

I hear this claim from lawyers, that signers to the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were lawyers, but the reality is that they were merchants, plantation owners, yeomen farmers, craftsmen, businessmen...with some who had read for the law. I recall one prominent Texas "king of torts" mocking doctors with this brag in a public interview, saying that when lawyers were creating our country doctors were still using leeches and bleeding patients.

Had I been there, I would have returned to this King of Torts, "And look who are the bloodsuckers, now--"

tort reform exists in the courts with judges and juries

In theory, perhaps. But judges are attorneys, part of the fraternity. Jurors are excluded from trials if deemed too intelligent, they say.

Too many lawyers, trying to make a living, digging up work. Check out the Yellow Pages.....many full page, sometimes double full page ads for attorneys. Why do you figure that is?

I'm sorry but I must say this, you are playing fast and loose with the truth. If you are a plaintiff's attorney as you say, you know that there are many cases settled for less than $50,000 because they are too expensive for the carrier to defend. Get down to the $10,000 figure and it's almost a "gimme".

This happens before any expert witnesses are required and before the plaintiff's lawyer has even spent much time on the case so that he has little or no money invested.

As an attorney, you know the truth of what I say. But what value has truth to an attorney. A famous quote attributed to a member of your profession is, "The truth has no place in a court of law."

Regards.