Detachment from victims lets lawyers judge a case’s true cost

Evidence

Conway found the cases in the files of Reed & Mulligan and got Schlichtmann interested in them. But Conway didn’t like the Woburn case. Whenever Schlichtmann mentioned it, Conway tried to steer him away. “It’s a black hole,” he’d warn Schlichtmann. Conway had never met the families, and he could view the case in a cold, unemotional light. He had learned by then that Schlichtmann never did anything in half measures, and the full measure of Woburn—the size, the complexity and the cost—scared Conway. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 305

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the recurring theme across this library of how intimacy with suffering distorts rational calculation — cf. Milgrom on reputation, and the ‘Close to home’ note that people prioritize problems physically near them. — connects to: Litigation funders demand personal collateral as a case’s claimed value inflates. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 1564; Contingency fees are the main reason individual plaintiffs can sue repeat players. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2265
• QUESTION: Would the Woburn families have been better served had Conway’s cold read prevailed and the case been dropped?