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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?
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
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.
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.
That's not really ironic, seeing as those taxpayers voted the idiots onto the school board. It seems pretty appropriate to me. If 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.
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.
It may not be a poor decision. We don't have enough information to decide that. (We also don't have enough information to decide if the lawyer was overpaid, underpaid, or appropriately paid. But, O Slashdot, don't let lack of knowledge get in the way of your prejudices about other vocations.) In settling a lawsuit, both sides have the same decision to make: What is the marginal risk of holding out for that next dollar? If you don't take the current offer, do the odds of getting more tomorrow weigh favorably against the odds of getting less tomorrow?
I don't know about that. I'm pretty happy about some of the class action lawsuits that have resulted in a lower likelihood of banks and pharmaceutical companies screwing me over, even though I never got a dime from them being settled or tried.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
You've posted this point in response to at least one other comment. I want to commend you for it.
Like this case, class action lawsuits are pretty commonly taken on with no guarantee of compensation. If the plaintiffs lose, their legal team gets nothing. Complain about the moral sliminess of lawyers all you want, but like all of us they definitely will not work for free.
Except that the taxpayers rarely get any say in who they "hire" when the corporate jungle owns all the media outlets and can pretty much dictate who the voters even know are on the ballot.
Well, we're talking about a local school here... Not Washington politics... So it's unlikely that the corporate jungle or media outlets had much to do with who got voted in.
But even if we're talking about Washington politics - it's still the voters fault that things are the way they are. Or, rather, the citizenship in general.
It is your responsibility as a citizen to participate in the democratic process. You're supposed to educate yourself and then show up to vote. If you don't vote, or if you don't bother to educate yourself, you're part of the problem.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
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.
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.
Exactly. But the FBI didn't really want to get involved in pursuing child pornography trafficking charges against a school
Maybe what we need is a legal process for the people to force those charged with enforcing the law to actually enforce the law. When a prosecutor has knowledge of a crime and refuses to act, that's aiding and abetting. Prosecute him. Prosecutorial immunity is just begging for corruption.
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