Hey, 1. How YOU doin??

I thought lawyers can't get paid for referrals.

In the late, lamented FC boards, he was known as Jim Sock of love.

Who cares? Elie ate all the SkaddenDC cookies. And we're all out of the job.

This sort of sleaze is why lawyer advertising should be banned.

This sort of sleaze is why lawyer advertising should be banned.

was thinking the same thing as 3

Different states have different rules for referrals. Some states, I assume after heavy lobbying from the insurance industry, do ban referrral fees, other states beleive in the free market and the right to appropriate legal counsel.

re: referral fees, I believe they just sign on the dotted line calling themselves "participating attorneys," then they receive a portion of the award/settlement, not a direct fee or payment.

Someone else can correct me or clarify, but that's my understanding

You know, while this is perhaps not the best example, there are many, many careers open to those with law degrees. Too often law students are led to believe that a firm, hopefully BigLaw , is the only career option - and that making partner is the end-all-be-all for lawyers. Part of that attitude is perpetuated by partners as they must convince others of the exclusivity and desirability of their club. Law school career services do little to prospect outside firms as well.

Take a moment to explore other options other than firms, and do not be seduced that partnership is the only way to prestige in the law.

11, unfortunately, most law students are sheep and they can only participate in career options that 80% of their peers go into (thus minimizing risk) and that are presented to them in an easy-to-follow path (OCI).

Law school is so f****** expensive that law students have no choice but to pursue big law jobs. I mean come on.

11-
I'm only a 2L, but I'd hazard a guess as to why law school career services offices do not help students explore possibilities like this. This guy went to Suffolk law school (whatever the hell that is) and built himself up out of nothing. You can't teach the kind of guts, creativity, thinking outside the box, and just plain balls that you have to have to do what this guy did.

13 - What percentage of law school grdautes actually get Biglaw jobs? 5%? 10%? Law school is just as expensive for the other 90%. Ever think of what they do to pay it back?

The only people that "look down" on that practice are BigLaw associates stuck reviewing pointless documents five years into their "practice" and are trying to justify their pathetic existences with notions of false prestige and importance.

Nobody really cares about the "sleazy" image, because given the opportunity for the awesome income, everyone would here would do it.

Wow, good post. Did Lat forget to switch accounts on the computer before typing this up?

13, a $150k student loan is $25k a year to pay off in ten years. That's $50k/year pre-tax at most.

Median US household gross salary is $40k. $40k + $50k = $90k, which is all you need. There are many non-biglaw jobs that pay $90k. And I'm not even counting loan repayment plans. Hint: don't pay $3k/month to rent a studio.

Hope that f*** helps.

11 -and what do you do for a living?

Is he wearing a piece?

It doesn't hurt that his wife owns and operates Stephanie's on Newbury, one of the more popular restaurants in Boston.

Scrotum is a great word.

I grew up in Boston watching this dude's commercials rotate every 7 minutes or so for a good 15 years. I always trusted him, but felt slightly slimy afterwards.

Jim has stated that he spends over a million dollars per year on advertising. In addition, he has had to appear to defend accusations of ethics violations and whatnot. Many of the Massachusetts rules regarding referrals and party contact have been created or changed because of Sokolove's approach.

I give him credit. He found a niche and it's working for him. He refers cases for the FDA issue described above, and he refers medical malpractice cases to well known Boston plaintiff's firms, such as Lubin & Meyer. And yes, the guy is filthy rich.

You're lying to yourself if you aren't even the slightest bit jealous.

Although they would never admit it, Kashmir and Lat masturbate to thoughts of Elie's black rod.

21 - Doesn't hurt him? It doesn't hurt her - he's got to make way more than she does.

Bea Arthur called. She wants her hair back.

11 is roughly correct.

anyway, this post reminds me of a funny incident when i was clerking for a district court judge. went into court to set up the judge's computer and there was a biglaw partner in the room and a volume schlock attorney (had no idea why he was there). the schlock guy saw the biglaw partner come in and said "oh, so and so is here, must be big money case with the big money lawyers." the biglaw partner, not missing a beat, said "whatever, i'm not the one who can afford to have commercials on all day, in spanish and english."

it's worth mentioning that the schlock probably pulls down low seven figures consistently all while working less than fifty hours a week with most of the work centering around making sure the operation runs smooth. don't think for a second this doesn't eat away at biglaw partners.

Anyone who acts remotely surprised by any of this doesn't know anything about how the world works.

Moreover, two points are left out:
1) The client is still ultimately empowered to determine whether they're being charged the appropriate legal fees.

2) Most often, the sort of people that call a lawyer because they saw a TV add would not have had any representation without it having been shoved in their face.

Ironically, it generally isn't plaintiff's firms that rail against this type of system, even though they compete for the work. The thinking being that the more advertisement there is, the larger the pie.

It's really the defense firms that rail against this because they'd rather just have those legitimate claims go unlitigated.

Which brings up another funny point: Why are moronic Biglaw associates so anti-plaintiff lawyers??? Don't they understand that it is the plaintiffs' bar that feeds the defense lawyers' families? How dumb can you be to pretend to make it political?

Mystal:

"a guy THAT advertises" (emphasis added)?

How about a guy WHO advertises. Nice to see Harvard raised the bar with your admission.

29-
BigLaw associates aren't anti-plaintiff lawyers on an existential level. They just laugh with derision at the kind of scumbags who BECOME plaintiff lawyers

James Sokolove and I used to cut up the slopes with like 6 ski bunnies

29, most biglaw associates are not in insurance defense or employment law or any field where their adversary is a prototypical TV plaintiff's lawyer. Many associates are not litigators and many litigators are commercial litigators.

Laughing with derision gets you nowhere. But at least you're oozing prestige.

if you want to work in a big law firm, for whatever reason (money, prestige, etc), fine, go at it. I am happy that you found something that you want to do. I enjoy my job (mid sized boutique) and the people I work with and for. The only time I even think about big law is when I come onto this board, and its usually to get a good chuckle out of the great comments made. I dont look up or down on biglaw associates or partners, and dont care if they look down on me. I have three great kids, a modest home, two 6 year old cars, no debt, take 3 week vacations every year and am well into saving for my retirement. that is the life I have chosen and am glad I did it. I am sorry that some people that choose biglaw jobs do so because they are hoping that other people will envy them. that fades pretty quickly (yes, I was there).

35-
I envy MYSELF, fool!

at first i thought this was that idiot that taught contracts in barbri

It's hysterical to me that most of you think that "top" law school grads are uniformly smarter or better lawyers than those lawyers from "lesser" schools. While those from "lesser" schools may not have had the test scores or college grades (for whatever reason) to get in to your school or money to go, many of them are still incredibly intelligent and damned good lawyers. Some of you people need a little real world experience. Once you get it, you'll learn that it's the true fool who underestimates someone based upon their educational pedigree.

And lest you try to call me a third tier troll or something equally witty, I will point out for all of you who need to put me in a box that I went to what you would all agree are a top college, top law school and top firm.

Rumplestiltskin

38- are you saying that Suffolk is not "lesser" and that Socks of Love is a "damned good lawyer"? Just checking. have fun in your box, DOUCHETARD

There are several of these referral hubs in Michigan. It's a good business model if you don't mind the stigma that attaches to personal injury lawsuit mills. A few attorneys (Sam Bernstein being the most prominent) build up a name and 1-800 number, employ a bunch of young associates and paralegals to do intake interviews and then refer the cases out to a pool of attorneys who pay for the referrals. Our ethics laws permit referral fees. All parties benefit (prospective plaintiff, referring attorney and working attorney). Some in the bar call it a racket. Others just ignore it and focus on their business model.

31: I remember pooh-poohing the complaints we'd receive from plaintiff's lawyers in a BIGLAW securities practice because they were so sloppy and poorly-written. You know, because what we'd written had been edited 600 times and the law had been double and triple and quadruple-checked. Of course, then the plaintiffs would win (or get an extremely favorable settlement) and I'd wonder what the purpose of going over every letter, discovery request, etc. was for and realized it was solely to perform for the client, who was getting hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. And then I stopped giving a shit.

33 - I'd disagree. Most (or at least many) Biglaw firms DO have Labor and Employment practices. Somebody has to defend Walmart in all those overtime class actions..

33 - Many, if not most, Biglaw firms do indeed have Labor and Employment practices. Somebody has to defend Walmart in all those overtime class actions.

Keep hating...attracting and building a client base is work. This guy helps net clients for my firm. Hence, I don't care if he hasn't seen a court room in decades as long as the client referals keep rolling in and they aren't crappy cases.

44: Just remember, of course, that it's the plaintiffs' lawyers who are dirtbags in that equation.

In a previous career, I worked on complex mass tort and product liability cases. There were only a handful of plaintiff firms, nationally, that were competent enough to take a first shot in mass torts; their courtroom results would create a metric on which the defense attorneys and the plaintiffs steering committees would negotiate mass settlements (anywhere for hundreds of millions to several billion dollars).
Those few plaintiff firms had attorneys with a mix of backgrounds: everyone from former biglaw/ivy-leaguers and former prosecutors to people who got their JDs at night-schools like Suffolk. The biglaw refugees explained that there was not a significant difference between the amount of work they did in biglaw versus their workload at the plaintiff firms. If anything, they worked longer hours for slightly less pay at the plaintiff firms. They still had good relationships with their friends in the defense bar; and they respected their former classmates' defense-side aspirations. They just preferred the plaintiffs' side work personally and politically, but it took them several years of getting corporations off the hook to realize biglaw wasn't a satisfying career goal. But they only switched over because they knew they could get high-end litigation work on the plaintiff side. There is a big difference between those firms and the other plaintiff firms, which essentially are referral mills full of attorneys who rarely get to do meaningful or interesting legal work.

47, I work for a small plaintiff's firm. The work is meaningful, interesting and profitable.

I love how people treat this business model like it's a nice and easy way to make a ton of money. Making it big in PI law is like going to the NBA. Many dream while few actually achieve.

Going to a crap law school is not the way to make it, just like skipping class to play ball is not a plan for any kid's future. One in a million gets lucky. The others just dream the rest of their lives.

Good grades and Biglaw are not the end-all-be-all, but they are a decent way to make a pretty good living.

46 - Ok, I'll bite -- how are the Plaintiffs' attorneys the dirtbags in that equation? Lots of desperately poor people get checks for a few grand -- which to them is like a fortune -- for work they actually did, but didn't get paid for. It's not like those stupid products liability class actions where the lawyer gets $50 million in attorneys' fees and every single person in America gets a coupon for a free cheeseburger at McDonald's for some reason nobody's quite clear on.. It's a bunch of people getting modest but real sums of money that they should have been paid in the first place for doing the work that drove the company's profits. Um... what about the Plaintiffs' bar in that equation is dirtbaggish?

Keep hating...attracting and building a client base is work. This guy helps net clients for my firm. Hence, I don't care if he hasn't seen a court room in decades as long as the client referals keep rolling in and they aren't crappy cases.

In a previous career, I worked on complex mass tort and product liability cases. There were only a handful of plaintiff firms, nationally, that were competent enough to take a first shot in mass torts; their courtroom results would create a metric on which the defense attorneys and the plaintiffs steering committees would negotiate mass settlements (anywhere for hundreds of millions to several billion dollars).
Those few plaintiff firms had attorneys with a mix of backgrounds: everyone from former biglaw/ivy-leaguers and former prosecutors to people who got their JDs at night-schools like Suffolk. The biglaw refugees explained that there was not a significant difference between the amount of work they did in biglaw versus their workload at the plaintiff firms. If anything, they worked longer hours for slightly less pay at the plaintiff firms. They still had good relationships with their friends in the defense bar; and they respected their former classmates' defense-side aspirations. They just preferred the plaintiffs' side work personally and politically, but it took them several years of getting corporations off the hook to realize biglaw wasn't a satisfying career goal. But they only switched over because they knew they could get high-end litigation work on the plaintiff side. There is a big difference between those firms and the other plaintiff firms, which essentially are referral mills full of attorneys who rarely get to do meaningful or interesting legal work.

42 nailed it!

50: 46 here. I was being facetious. Completely agree with you, although I think there's merit in product liability cases if only because it forces a wrongdoing defendant to pony up.

55 nailed it!!!

The bottom line is that generally, plaintiff's lawyers are scumbags. That some are very wealthy doesn't take away from the fact that they are scumbags.

Any plaintiff's lawyer who thinks differently is kidding themselves. When people deride lawyers they use perjorative terms like "ambulance chasers" and "leaches" - clearly they aren't refering to tax attorneys. When people deride the overly-litigious culture in this country- who do you think society blames for it - plaintiff's lawyers.

They may have a law degree and they may make a good living, but can anyone honestly say that they are proud to be a plaintiff's lawyer. What douches!

@27 FTW.

Re: 19, How many law students graduate with $150,000 in debt? Is that really the average debt these days?

56 - I'm a Plaintiff's lawyer, and I'm proud of it. And all of my Biglaw friends are slightly envious -- even though they make more than I do -- because I'm the only attorney they know who honestly loves their job and goes home every day feeling they've done good for the world.

(50 here -- Plaintiffs' wage and hour class action litigator)

59 -

Done good for the world? Eleviating your clients from taking any personal responsibility for their actions ? Holding companies (who by the way can only continue to employ people so long as they remain in existence) hostage by threatening to put them out of business if they don't give in to outrageous setttlement demands ? Oh, and then - when you actually have a truly injured plainitff - taking 1/3 of their settlement.

I stand corrected you are a saint.

56, another plaintiff's /Criminal Defense lawyer here who is not a scumbag. Actually have a fufilling job and get to deal with actual human beings instead of some b.s. coke v. pepsi lawsuit, or a mind numbing real estate transaction.

After fainting and experiencing severe headaches during soccer practice, a former client went into the ER on a Friday night. He was released a few hours later and told to get some rest and take an aspirin. The next day, his symptoms worsened, and he returned to the ER, where he sat for more than 12 hours until he finally was seen by a resident. Around midnight he went into respiratory arrest. A tumor had ruptured in his cervical spine. When he woke up on Sunday, he was a quadriplegic. He was six.

Curiously, I don't feel like a dirtbag or douchebag.

60 - Of all your the points you made, only one (the fact that companies can only employ people so long as they remain in business) is remotely valid. And we always take steps to avoid putting companies out of business if possible.

For the rest? How does "taking any personal responsibility for their actions" play into somebody working sixty hours a week and getting paid for forty? What are you even talking about? Because they agreed to take the job in the first place -- usually because they were living paycheck to paycheck and had to accept whatever they could get -- that makes it their own problem? You won't get far with that argument.

And wage and hour statutes usually call for payment of attorneys' fees -- as do class action statutes if you can properly convince a judge to allow it -- on top of the settlement / judgment. So there's no third being taken.

60, what does eleviating mean? Just because their fathers are in biglaw, doesn't mean sophomores in high school should post here.

I'm sorry to sound like a grammar troll. But when you're trying to sound condescending, you're really discredited by making such glaring errors.

38: The reason you need to be padlocked into your box is because you come on THIS site and think your holier-than-thou crap is gonna fly and make any difference at all. Apparently at no time during your top-flight education did you discover any common sense whatsoever.

62: 100% of your rent is now paid for out of 35% of that poor kid's settlement. Don't worry, I'm sure he didn't really need it anyway, and so you can sleep tonight cuddled up in a bed stuffed with 35% of his money. Sweet dreams you DOUCHE

60 = fucktard

Anyone who really believes that drivel is clearly a drone. Biglaw and plaintiff's firms are the exact same. Some good, most bad, do anything for money.

Politics is for douchebags and douchbags only. Bringing politics into the efficacy of plaintiffs bar/plaintiffs firms = fucktard

65- I love you man. That was a great post. 62 probably takes solace in the fact that, even if his rent is paid by 35% of that poor cripple's money, at least the car payments and the summer home are paid for with 35% of a Walmart-morbidly-obese-pathological-liar-slip-and-fall-banana-peel settlement

65, 62 here, your analysis demonstrates a novel and keen insight into American civil justice. I for one am persuaded. Your legal education surely was first rate, and represents money well spent. Your parents must be very proud. Bravo.

60, have you ever actually practiced law? Seriously, I used to have the same views until practicing a few years and seeing how the real world works. Very few contingency fee lawyers are going to take patently frivolous cases because, contrary to popular belief, insurance companies and self-insured corporate defendants generally don't just throw money at any and all claims made against them. These market forces result in putative plaintiffs either realizing they have no viable claims and giving up after being rebuffed by the lawyer(s) they've contacted, or pursuing their claims pro se.

69-
then explain the widespread popularity of TORT REFORM, dill-nuts.

65, 62 here, your analysis demonstrates a novel and keen insight into American civil justice. I for one am persuaded. Your legal education surely was first rate, and represents money well spent. Your parents must be very proud. Bravo.

65, 62 here, your analysis demonstrates a novel and keen insight into American civil justice. I for one am persuaded. Your legal education surely was first rate, and represents money well spent. Your parents must be very proud. Bravo.

68/71: I'm glad to have a covert. Now instead of focusing on sarcasm, why don't you try applying your TTT eyes to the line above the posting box that reads: "Please only submit your comment once."

DOUCHE.

Now stop raving and keep your head cocked to the side, or you might miss the ambulance sirens.

68/71: I'm glad to have a covert. Now instead of focusing on sarcasm, why don't you try applying your TTT eyes to the line above the posting box that reads: "Please only submit your comment once."

DOUCHE.

Now stop raving and keep your head cocked to the side, or you might miss the ambulance sirens.

73/74 : in the words of Nelson Muntz: HAW HAW

65: So, only defense-side lawyers should be compensated? Plaintiff's lawyers take cases on a contingency - if they lose, they get zero. I'm pretty confident the kid's parents were happy to turn over 35% (or whatever the percentage is in 62's state) to get their child a decent settlement to enable them to pay for care for the rest of his damn life. Sure - I bet they would've done great pro se.

70--Not 69, but I have practiced PI law and a lot of commercial litigation as well. Tort reform is popular becuause people and institutions do not want to be responsible for their actions. PI lawyers do not take frivolous cases because they can't make money on them. Insurance companies do not hurl money at weak claims. Read the cases dealing with motions for summary judgment in the law books (or on line). I will admit that securities class actions struck me as working a little differently. There, at least prior to the 1995 change in the law, marginal cases could garner big settlements. That is emphatically not how it works in the nitty gritty world of slip and fall, motor vehicle negligence and med mal.

70- Tort reform exists because there are too many greedy companies getting caught. It used to be cheaper to pay off the people they injured rather than fix their unsafe products. Now that it's not, they've found it's chaper to pay lobbyists for tort reform than compensate their victems.

38-- I'm going to have to agree with the "douchetard" remark above. I would also recommend auditing some classes at your "top school" to work on your writing a bit. I guess your "top firm" hasn't offered any help in that regard.

73 / 74 -- That might be the most embarrassing, epic failure in the history of the interwebs.

And it's "convert," not "covert."

I could have posted a comment to indicate that I posted only once, as per referred to instructions, only to draw your reflexive, insipid and thoughtless criticism, knowing it would not occur to your obviously overworked pea-sized brain that multiple posts may be the result of something other than user error. But, then I didn't need to, did I? Genius.

I love that lawyers like you (again being generous here) are so frequently on the other side.

Now I will click "Post Comment" exactly once. Cheers.

62

73 / 74 -- That might be the most embarrassing, epic failure in the history of the interwebs.

And it's "convert," not "covert."

OK, 70, or "Necrobutcher" as I'll refer to you from here on out, I will (69 here). Insurance interests have used outlier claims and verdicts, along with general public distrust of lawyers and judges in the abstract, to gin up public opinion that the judicial system is out of control and needs to be reigned in through legislation (and I'm writing this as a registered Republican and someone who considers Scalia his favorite SCOTUS justice, not as a flaming lib). Assuming, Necrobutcher, that you're 60 again, if you've ever actually practiced within the litigation realm (which I have, on both sides of the "v" and in commerical matters), you'd realize that in the vast majority of cases, truly frivolous claims will be taken care of prior to reaching trial and, if not, will be disposed of by a jury. My point in my previous post is that litigation is very expensive. Most plaintiffs' lawyers are not going to take on the financial burden of fronting filing fees, deposition fees/transcript costs, expert fees, travel costs, etc. to litigate weak or low value claims, not to mention the loss of value for their time invested. The market therefore works to nip most patently frivolous or worthless claims in the bud.

83 - Love the Wrestler reference.

83 - Love the Wrestler reference.

62 - aside from this one righteous case - how many garbage cases have taken - far more than one I am sure.

62 - aside from this one righteous case - how many garbage cases have taken - far more than one I am sure. And in your case what happened, was it a preventable negligent situation, or simply a freak and tragic accident that can occur even when one gets the best medical care around

62 - I believe that you lifted that story directly from a John Grisham book. Was your client's father a Mississippi Supreme Court Justice who used to be extremely pro-business?

86 - actually, no. But that's not the point, is it?
62

New person here, I represent individuals and small businesses, including PI work. This work helps real people in a real way. Contingent fees work in the client's favor. They simply could not afford to hire a lawyer otherwise and I have never had any of them complain.

Take your self righteous bullshit and stick it up your ass.

88 - actually, no. But your learned response makes my point: critics of plaintiffs' litigation tend to prefer fiction and hyperbole to reality, because reality just doesn't seem to support their position.

62

87 - a unanimous jury concluded that the doctors' negligence caused the boy's injury.

62

39 nailed it.

80 - I'm revoking all your future "epic fail" privileges due to your use of "interwebs."

Sokolove is not the only guy like this. Sam Bernstein is a Detroit plaintiff's lawyer who, like sokolove, made his dough through referrals

E L E V I A T I N G

87: So, unless something's a freak/tragic accident, a plaintiff's case has no merit?

Your comments, especially 73/74, are very entertaining.

Signed,

Laid-off-from-biglaw-and-would-gladly-take-6-figures-doing-plaintiff's-work.