I’m not sure that’s true. Families don’t always have deep pockets. The lawyer is paid a % of the settlement, which is probably more money than the family could just pay out of pocket. But it does mean they need to win, so they pick their cases. I mean if you pay them well in cash they’ll likely take any case. But a lot of personal injury cases and such are paid on a percentage.
TWeaK@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Not necessarily, if that was the case I would expect it to be very likely they would win - a lawyer isn’t going to take a case on contingency if they don’t think they will win. More likely the family have a little bit of money saved up and the lawyer is taking advantage of them in their emotional state by encouraging them into a frivilous lawsuit.
scarabic@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It’s a sliding scale built on risk and reward.
They will take the case if they think they can win OR when they only have a chance of winning but the settlement is going to be large.
25% chance of a $10 million settlement with a big corporation: take the case.
90% chance of multi hundred thousand dollar insurance payout: take the case.
Probably they also consider the amount of work. For all we know, both of the above could be just 10-20 hours of work.