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Lawyer Is Big Winner In Webcamgate Settlement
crimeandpunishment writes "The Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania has agreed to a $610,000 settlement in two lawsuits over secret photos taken on school-issued laptops. Less than a third of that will go to the students. A total of $185,000 will be put in trust for the students. Their lawyer will receive $425,000."
But you know, lawyers have costs too. For example they need to pay their office, wages, taxes, and paper isn't free either. The students itself didn't have any costs and I doubt they would had win the case without a lawyer, don't you think?
And the irony is? All the money came from the tax payers.
Lawyers are legalized crooks, news at 11. The world would be a better place without them. The fact that we need specialized professions to be able to properly navigate the legal system is, well, downright stupid.
Can anyone tell me why 99% of
Which is why the parents should have held-out for more money. If for example the damages were 2 million, the lawyer would get his 425,000*, and the students would get 1.6 million. The fact the parents chose to accept such a paltry sum merely demonstrates a poor decision on their part.
*
* Actually the lawyer only gets ~$220,000. The rest goes to taxes. So gov't made-out big too.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Just a reminder kids - stay in school - LAW SCHOOL.
This lawyer has proven that lawyer-driven lawsuits are a critical part of keeping the high-paid lawyer system intact.
the only winners in class action lawsuits are the lawyers.
IANAL, probably there are reasons for this; but I'd greatly appreciate a car analogy that helps me understand why the settlement was split that way.
Such things happen every day, every time.
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Skunkpost? WTF is that?
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I am glad they won and I don't particularly care that the lawyers are getting paid the majority of the settlement. What I do care about is that the people actually responsible aren't going to be punished. The settlement will be paid by the district's insurance policy and the people actually responsible will get to walk away.
I'm hoping eventually we run out of stuff to attach "gate" to.
Tough call for me, on this one.
On the one hand, I don't even bother participating in the various class actions suits I qualify for, because my dignity costs more than a $5 gift certificate. The lawyers in those situations should make far, far less.
In this situation, though, that really amounts to a pittance for even a small legal team, perhaps three lawyers plus their supporting staff, working for a solid two months on the case; Unfortunately, this one had no big corporate pockets to raid, and even in winning, the community (rather than the school administration) suffers. So a bigger payout that might really have given the kids something to enjoy, wouldn't have counted as a win for anyone.
Personally, I'd much rather have seen the school administration facing child porn charges, and no civil penalties involved. Then, and only then, could we have seen a "win" here.
Let me be the first to /facepalm.
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It's always the lawyers who win. Always the lawyers.
The RIAA fighting piracy? Lawyers make millions. Microsoft asserting its software patents? Lawyers make millions. Porn studios want to sue a bunch of people? They call Andrew Crossley. Layers make millions. Andrew Crossley leaks the database of his victims? Sue him. Lawyers make millions. Someone calls you a dick on the internet? Sue him. Lawyers make millions. A hospital patient dies? Sue the doctors! Lawyers make millions. etc etc etc
Where does all that money come from? Of course, we as good little consumers and taxpayers, pay for everything. It's not the shareholders that lose money -- companies have an obligation to keep them happy -- but they have no obligation towards their customers or any need to keep prices reasonable.
Maybe we can apply some oil company resentment and institute a Windfall Profit Tax, just to spread the wealth around a little. Na, this would take an act of Congress, members of which are mostly lawyers.
Conservative, mod down for violating
The sad part for the parents is that they really have no legal alternative to suing themselves.
The vast majority of lawyers are scum that leach off of the rest of society. Remember, judges are also lawyers.
Exactly, we should go back to the simple days when people appointed by the king made arbitrary decisions based on their mood and how much people bribed them. That was much better.
What was the Lawyer doing in the secret pictures taken by the school laptops?
Cocaine, the children, padding the bill? Anything is possible,and not a clue in the article.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Where is the call for the US governemt to take over Legal care?
Isn't legal care a right? Isn't $425,000 a big bill to be paid?
Where are the liberals and the Democrats in calling for Lawyers to be paid like Doctors?
How about a system of free legal care for everyone with lawyers paid according to a scale set by the governemnt? Spying on kids = $8,000 fee, not $425,000.
Unlike Obamacare, this really could save taxpayers money.
I just wish Congress did unto lawyers what they do unto doctors.....
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So, it's OK to have a society where a group that produces absolutely nothing (e.g. what we call a 'parasitic class') can pocket 2/3 of our wealth? This the really what's wrong with America. Instead of asking how we can fix this awful situation we're busy asking how we can be the guy that gets paid $400k to fill out a little paperwork.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Don't for a second think that the business of government doesn't benefit from the ridiculously complex, ambiguous, and corrupt system of law. It costs billions of dollars per year to administer the whole thing.
The more laws, and the more lawsuits, the more money being raked through the business of government each year. Therefore, those at the top of the pyramid are better positioned to exploit that cash flow for personal gain, whether directly or (more commonly) indirectly. They have an incentive to encourage more lawsuits, not less.
...most Congressional Representatives and Senators are lawyers.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If this was a class action suit on a contingency, then it's not really all that unfair or surprising. A lawyer might put in hundreds of hours of very real, hard work before even getting to trial, and then have to perform well during trial, and then finally have to leave the jury's decision up to chance to some extent.
It's a huge gamble for such a lawyer. It seems like they're assholes, but in honesty, if they took it on contingency, it's really not a bad situation for the client, and the lawyer is taking a bigger risk. If they lose, the client pays nothing and the lawyer is out of hundreds of hours of work. If they win, the client gets X dollars that they wouldn't have and the lawyer gets a big payoff.
Now, don't get me wrong-- for class actions where the settlement or judgment is more or less "a free voucher for a french fry," but the lawyers collect millions, that's slimy and awful.
Attorney - An honest, well-educated representative of my interests before the court.
Shyster - The low-life, lying dirtbag representing my opponent.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
it looks like only 2 students will get any money (and only one gets much).
I find it strange that while we know that this happened to all the students only one or two of them gets any compensation.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
at 40 hours a week 1000 billable hours comes out to 10 months of work, which is how long the case has been in the news. nothing greedy about it
not like the lawyer keeps everything. there are office expenses, salaries for paralegals, business taxes, personal taxes, benefits and a long list of other expenses that have to be paid before they can take some money home to pay their personal expenses.
on another forum i frequent there is a lawyer who lives in this school district and he drives a toyota. most lawyers see about the same percentage as music artists get on CD sales after they pay all the expenses
I don't get this attitude that the lawyers are the only winners. Sure, they're the big financial winners here. This was never a case about lost funds, though. It was a case in which the students sought both relief from invasive practices and a punitive sum to discourage further similar actions. They won on both counts, and since no school district wants to shell out over half a mil because they spied on their students it should be a win for the privacy of teens everywhere.
Either a total pervert or a pending lawsuit.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
It would have been an unfair distraction for our students and staff and it would have cost taxpayers additional dollars that are better devoted to education.
The district issues Apple laptops to all 2,300 students at its two high schools.
They have NO right to use finances as an excuse.
The proper solution is a settlement such as this, but split to every student that was spied on, PLUS jail time for those who made the call to do it. Bring that wiretapping charge back!
No, there is no "-1 I'LL NEVER ADMIT BEING WRONG!!!" mod.
who got sacked for doing this? Who's going to jail? who's being charged with pedophilia? Who's on the sex crime watch list because of this?
Because if the answer is no one then justice was not served and no one learned any lessons 'Cept that Lawyers charge a lot for their services.
What we have here is a case where every article of trust that the parents put in the school was broken. Somebody SHOULD BE IN JAIL. I'm not going to allow any child of mine to have a school issue laptop in their room without the webcam being physically disabled. Even if this means that I have to put duct tape over the lens myself.
I seriously cannot believe that nobody was sent down as a sex offender. It sounds like a case of the fed protecting their own. One branch of the government protecting another. What is it going to take to get a prosecution?
One way or another, either services will be cut or taxes will be raised.
Fines don't work for large companies and government organizations. The only thing that would work is jail time.
A large corporation externalizes the fines and calculates them into the cost of doing business. A government organization cuts back $610,000 on after school programs or raises taxes .001% to cover the amount.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
skunkpost STINKS
The people writing the laws ARE Lawyers! The Legislative and Executive branches are full of lawyers. We have over 50,000 federal laws and growing daily. Add to it state and local statues, and it's amazing that more people aren't in jail. Compound this fact that most people can even understand the laws (because lawyers using their pedantic language), and there is little hope of defending yourself. That's why any bill is well over 1,000 pages.
"Ones and zeros were everywhere. I even think I saw a two!" - Bender
If the law firms take more than 50% of the settlement, could we reason that the law firm is now working in its own interest, not the client's interest?
Of course most of us know we can't just pay a law bill, win or lose, and big organizations could just out-spend us into bankruptcy, so we have to make those percentage deals. Sad state of affairs really.
Who gets to write off the $425,000 on taxes? The families or the school district?
Teabagger says what?
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The real story here is not that the civil suit succeeded but that the authorities chose to protect their own by not prosecuting. The criminal case had merit and would also have provided a valuable precedent to protect children from at-home surveillance in the future. Now schools just know that they have to hide it better.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20100818_No_charges_in_Lower_Merion_webcam_case.html
The choice of excuses, "no evidence of criminal intent", was a joke. They have multiple emails in which the administrators describe the at-home surveillance as a 'soap opera'.
What a disaster.
You could argue that the students win because the school will not do anything like that again in a hurry, and that students in general win because other schools will be more careful not to blatantly infringe upon their personal space too. Not everything comes down to just money - the deterrent of there now being a successful action in recorded case law may well have some value.
Admittedly some of that value is to the lawyers as they can use it too, as it is them that will be paid to interpret the outcome as being in favour of their clients in future cases. And as it is a school that has been hit with the judgement, and it isn't a fully privately funded institution, the money actually comes from the "winners" and the rest of the state's tax payers in the end...
It's simply economics. These types of cases are usually taken on contingency. Lose and you get paid $0. So the lawyer has to determine the risk involved and run the cost-benefit analysis. Big wins counterbalance the losses, and the lawyer's fees cover more than just time at trial.
Plus, the settlement figure wasn't predetermined. If the lawyer expected only $100k, and his chances of obtaining the settlement were low (say 40%), the expected benefit is only $40,000 for months - years of work.
Sincerely,
first-year lawyer with $120k in debt
you should check how much should be getting the lawyers with all the smartphone companies suing each other for patents.
and things have changed how?
Oh, yeah, people appointed by corporations (or at least backed with corporate millions to drown out their opponent's message) do that for us now.
http://threefeloniesaday.com/
It's amazing the crap that's actually illegal...
Instead of a civil suit, I would have wanted this to be a criminal trial against the superintendent. He could have been charged with any number of felonies and that would have been a more meaningful deterrent against those that would seek to trample on individual rights.
Lawyers leaching off clients is not newsworthy. Title of the article should have been "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN AMERICA?". FTA "prosecutors decided not to pursue criminal charges", "took pictures of students even while they were sleeping in their own bedroom".
Prosecutors, the FBI, and Judges are taking a big dump on the constitutional rights of individuals, and you're concern is what the lawyer earns off of this??? Americans are squandering their freedom and have no right to complain when they finally wake up and realize their Democracy is but a shadow of what it once was.
Hope is the currency of fools
Being paid 2/3 the total settlement is the same as 200% the plaintiffs take. That's like getting paid double what your employer makes!
I understand that most U.S. trail lawyers make around 30% the total, which is far less than this.
Also, it doesn't matter whether a case is a "slam dunk" or not. Either the Lawyer can afford to wait for the money, or needs to be paid up front.
Wow - you've described the US today. Congratulations.
If people hate these kind of lawsuits so much, why don't make Champerty and maintenance as a crime?
Replace "king" with "congressman" and you have yourself a deal, partner.
No
How about this: You go to court, the judge judges the case on the merits, not on the legal maneuverings of lawyers. How about making the "law" simple enough that a person of average intelligence and income can present a case before a court without a lawyer, without having to know all the "legal" contrivances needed to ignore the truth.
Awww screw it, that would never work. Better have the screwed up system we have now than risk it on trying something that is better for everyone who isn't a lawyer.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
It was probably cheaper.
Well, ever faced that stern-faced lady in HR who, with tight lips, told you that you can basically go F yourself and they are not going to do anything about the asshole you was making life hell for you?
Well, a lawyer comes in handy, you know, for talking to that lady.
f I hire an employee who does something stupid on behalf of the company, I have to suffer for it. Taxpayers have to suffer for their bad hires, too.
if you hire a stupid employee, you have direct oversight of their activities, or you have someone you hired to oversee them. As a taxpayer, I have almost zero oversight and control over the activities of any representatives I 'hire'. If I vote a politician into office, why should I be held financially responsible for their activities if they decide to burn down a building or something? Shouldn't the people who behaved irresponsibility be the ones impacted?
The reason that lawyers sue the city/state/national government is because they have lots of money. The first rule of tort law is never sue a poor person, because when you win, you still lose.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
It wouldn't be much worse though.
Either deal with the justice system, suck it up, or take personal vengeance out on those who made the decisions.
Dealing with the justice system seems the best answer here.
Blar.
As an attorney myself, I feel the need to address some misconceptions.
1. This was not a class action, it was simply two individual cases.
2. The article is woefully sparse on details regarding the settlement. I do not practice in Pennsylvania, but I can assure you that the Rules of Professional Conduct in that state do not allow attorneys to take a nearly 70% fee. Most states will only allow a maximum fee of 35% or so. In a contingency fee practice, the client is always responsible for his or her own costs, unless the client fee agreement specifically states otherwise. Under the agreement, these costs are advanced by the attorney, but the client is ultimately responsible for repayment. In this case, it seems unlikely that the attorney could have accumulated $350k in costs, but regardless, any money above that 35% (more likely 33%) ceiling is going to repay money the attorney already spent out of his or her own pocket. These costs do not include the attorney's salary, her staff's salary, office rent, etc, they only include direct costs related to the case, such as legal research fees, travel expenses, filing fees, and expert fees.
3. An attorney DOES have repercussions if she issues casual advice to a potential client. The attorney/client relationship begins before any agreement is signed between the parties. Details, even from an initial meeting and even if the attorney is not ultimately hired to represent the client, are protected by attorney/client privilege and the attorney can land herself in hot water if she breaches this privilege.
Something to remember here is that an individual can always represent him or herself in court, so long as the individual is competent. That being said, hiring an experienced attorney will inevitably lead to a better outcome, very likely offsetting any costs. Unfortunately, our legal system is far too complex to navigate effectively without years of education and experience.
-Alex
He didn't produce anything. He got $600,000 taken from someone else and redistributed to himself and his client.
There was no net increase in societal wealth - it has the same net value after the money is moved as it does before.
Now, if he skinned a beaver and produced a pelt , that would have actually made for an increase in net value of material goods.
Actually, there's no net increase in societal wealth in your example, either. The beaver is out a pelt.
Unless you're some sort of looney that doesn't consider beavers a part of society.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
In most cases, specialists rendering a service are viewed as having really "added value". For example, the programmer actually writes code that's left behind after he/she is gone, and gets used regularly. The doctors aren't generally criticized for making the money they do, as much as the HOSPITALS are, from what I've seen? Typically, if you have a good doctor, you're happy to pay him/her for their services and feel like their advice and prescriptions gave you back some measure of lost health that was worth what they charged you.
In the case of attorneys, they're largely regarded as "parasites" because they insist on billing that way. The services they provide are typically littered with "nonsense" that becomes line-items on a client's bill. For example? Say you're in the middle of a divorce and hire an attorney to deal with it? You'll typically be asked to pay several thousands bucks, up front, as a retainer fee, BEFORE anything is even accomplished at all. (Does you doctor or software programmer demand this?) After you pay, you get billed for such things as a document being delivered and submitted to the court clerk. (Did you really need to pay $250/hr. or whatever he/she bills at, to pay the lawyer to drive 15 minutes from the office to the courthouse and stand in a line a few minutes to turn the document in for you?) For that matter, you're typically billed an hour or more for time spent drafting letters or other documents that are already saved on a PC as a Word template, and a relatively low-paid admin. assistant actually filled out. Then, if you have the unfortunate luck I had in my own personal situation? You might even have your lawyer call you, unsolicited, to complain about the fact that you said something negative about the way he was handling your case to another attorney he happened to be buddies with -- and then get billed for an hour of phone time for the call! In any case, you can bet they're going to charge you that high rate any time you call with a simple question he/she didn't adequate explain to you when you were in the office discussing the topic in the first place!
Usually, by the time your divorce case ever makes it to a courtroom, where the attorney's skill-set is actually NEEDED? He/she has burnt through that whole retainer fee and wants thousands of dollars MORE from you to finish things up!
You say you haven't been the same since you had your little crash
But you might feel better if I gave you some cash
The more I think about it, Old Billy was right
Let's kill all the lawyers, kill 'em tonight
You don't want to work, you want to live like a king
But the big, bad world doesn't owe you a thing
--- Get Over It, the Eagles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milken
Milken was indicted on 98 counts ... as the result of an insider trading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insider_trading investigation.
and meet Martha Stewart's stockbroker http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2003-69.htm (not allegedly)
The scenario you described is called "insider trading" and, likely because it is illegal, when you find a stockbrocker who *is* willing to go for the arrangement they often insist on keeping quite a bit more than 75% of the profits.
Or we could go back to Grecian times and have judges chosen by lot.
You just described small claims. Have an actual real-world dispute with someone? You're highly likely to be able to seek, and GET, relief there.
Meanwhile, for high-dollar cases, it's nice to have rules set in stone to let business go on without wondering if the whim of a judge is going to find something subjectively "unfair".
this case was a slam fucking ass sure win you ain't gonna lose dunk, a "civvie" could have won it hands down easy once they got up to speed on COURT PROCEDURE. I've done cases myself, won every one of them. I once beat some hyper expensive flown in association lawyer, he caved on the courthouse steps because he knew full well I had him by the balls and had done my homework.. No, YOU DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO HIRE SOME EXPENSIVE LAWYER.
Geez it is easier than bash scripting. If you have a righteous case, at most, you might need a paralegal to file paper work, then sit on some cases with the judge you will be getting to read him, familiarize yourself with court procedure, and be polite, firm, professional sounding and looking, and to the point and have your ducks in a row once you are in there.
There was nothing in dispute in this case! The school district fucked up, clean and clear as day, no way would they have won.
others have made the same comment - the only 'justice' these kids are getting is through the flawed but functional civil system . Why haven't any criminal cases been brought . The taxpayer pays the insurances and the guilty walk . At least the civil case brought some heat on the guilty however imperfect . Pay the lawyer - at least he did something !
others have made the same comment - the only 'justice' these kids are getting is through the flawed but functional civil system . Why haven't any criminal cases been brought .
I guess RTFA isn't your strong suit?
I guess thinking isn't your strong suit? Just because prosecutors decided not to indict officials (for committing a crime where they would happily send you, Joe Shmoe, to a federal pound-me-in-the-ass penitentiary) doesn't mean a crime wasn't committed. See: Wall Street fraud. See: Bushco torture.
I think the difference is in the responsibility and accountability for giving the answer. As as licensed physician, I am happy to help out when I am not working professionally, but at the same time, I am not to be held accountable for my answer (because otherwise I would need to do a lot more work before answering, and I would expect to be compensated for that). As a licensed engineer, the same applies: I'll answer questions, but if you expect to get an answer commensurate with a P.Eng, you better provide compensation commensurate with a P.Eng.
So, you might envision this conversation at a party:
Software Engineer: "Hi. How's it going?"
Medical Doctor: "Crummy. My Windows system went down."
SE: "Why are you using Microsoft, man? Seriously, you should switch to Linux."
MD: "Okay. How are things with you?"
SE: "I'm not getting any. I'm microsofter than Microsoft."
MD: "You should get Viagra."
So far so good. But how accountable are these answers?
One year later ...
SE: "Hey, you said I should get Viagra, and you didn't even check if I was taking isosorbide mononitrate! I went to the Emergency and almost died! I should sue you!"
MD: "Oh, yeah? Well, I switched to Linux like you said, it couldn't handle my mission-critical Windows software like Excel VBscript and Minesweeper, and I almost had to shut down my clinic! I'm the one who should sue you!"
You don't seriously expect this conversation to take place, but it's a lot more common for a doctor to be held accountable to his/her words than an IT person.
Note: This is not legal advice, nor medical advice, nor IT advice. There is no express or implied warranty to this text. This text has been transmitted to you with particles moving at close to the speed of light; the poster is not responsible for any injury caused by coming in contact with these particles.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I always thought that there should be three judge panels for courts, one decided by each party, and one decided by both (or random drawing), which direct the proceedings, instead of lawyers.
But that is just me.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
i hate to say it, but did he work alone or does he have associates
From the article, "Although we would have valued the opportunity to finally share an important, untold story in the courtroom, we recognize that in this case, a lengthy, costly trial would benefit no one," school board President David Ebby said in a statement late Monday. "It would have been an unfair distraction for our students and staff and it would have cost taxpayers additional dollars that are better devoted to education."
What is this mysterious "untold story" that would have explained why the school took 56,000 snapsots of kids, or 400 of the plaintiff?
Line em up.