Salem Press

Criminal Justice
Clear, authoritative treatment of all aspects of criminal justice - emphasis on justice in the media.

U.S. Laws, Acts,
and Treaties
Provides the much-needed service of selecting, from literally thousands of U.S. laws, those most likely to come up in classroom discussions.

The Bill of Rights
A comprehensive survey of all aspects of the U.S. Bill of Rights; from its origins to its role in modern American history.

U.S. Court Cases
Fundamental issues of law and what is meant by "justice" plus presentations of the 212 most important US court cases.

The U.S. Legal System
Personal Injury Attorneys

Lawyers who specialize in representing persons who have been injured against those responsible for the injuries

Among the less flattering images of unscrupulous lawyers is that of the ambulance chaser, the lawyer who arrives shortly after an accident to find among the injured and bleeding a new client. In fact, ambulance chasers are outlaws among attorneys, subject to disbarment for their unethical solicitation of clients. However, people who have been injured in some way nevertheless frequently need legal representation, and personal injury attorneys specialize in such cases. Personal injury lawyers may handle cases as varied as those involving relatively minor traffic accidents and those involving the injuries and deaths produced by the crash of an airliner.

Personal injury lawyers usually rely on a particular kind of fee arrangement, called a contingency fee agreement. This agreement provides that the personal injury attorney will not recover a fee in a case unless the attorney obtains some recovery for the client. In addition, personal injury attorneys generally pay the expenses needed to prepare a case for trial and deduct these from any ultimate recovery. These expenses, which include the fees of expert witnesses and the cost of pretrial discovery of facts about the case, can be very substantial and would be beyond the means of most individuals. However, by setting aside money from prior successful cases, personal injury attorneys are able to keep a reserve of cash for use on the expenses of subsequent cases. Consequently, by using the contingency fee agreement and by paying litigation expenses up front, personal injury attorneys are able to provide representation to individuals regardless of their financial standing.

Accident Statistics

Accidental injuries kill more Americans between the ages of one and thirty-four than all diseases put together. These fatalities drain the economy of more years of people's working lives than cancer and heart disease combined.

Among the ten leading causes of death in the American population, nonvehicular accidents rank fourth. Car accidents rank sixth.

For every fatal accident there are approximately ten nonfatal accidental injuries.

In 1988 thirty-five deaths and more than eighteen thousand injuries requiring hospital treatment occurred as a result of power lawnmower accidents.

Each year an estimated 350 children under the age of five drown in residential swimming pools and spas.

Each year approximately 4,600 children under the age of five are treated in hospital emergency rooms following water accidents.

An average of 90,000 children under the age of fifteen annually received hospital emergency room treatment as a result of injuries from toys.

One out of twenty-five Americans is likely to be an accident victim.

But these financial aspects of personal injury practice are also controversial. The first and perhaps most important element of a successful personal injury practice is obtaining cases involving personal injury plaintiffs. This need to find clients causes some personal injury lawyers to engage in television or radio advertising, which is viewed as demeaning to the profession by more conservative lawyers. Furthermore, the need to find clients also tempts some personal injury lawyers to violate established rules against soliciting clients: in short, to engage in ambulance chasing.

Even after personal injury attorneys find their clients, they may be tempted to provide funds to these clients to cover medical and living expenses prior to trial or settlement. Personal injury clients are sometimes lured into accepting artificially low settlements of their injuries because they lack the financial resources to survive the lengthy period of time it normally takes to win a verdict at trial and sustain it on appeal. However, the law has long disfavored allowing persons to encourage litigation by offering support or other encouragements to litigating parties. The legal doctrines of champerty and maintenance, for example, make it a crime in many jurisdictions for persons to offer such support. Furthermore, rules of legal ethics prohibit attorneys from providing medical or living expenses to their clients.

Timothy L. Hall

See Also: Attorney fees; Attorney types; Contingency fees; Damages; Litigation expenses; Negligence; Solicitation of legal clients; Torts.