Without contingent fees, ordinary citizens with real injuries would often not sue.
Evidence
Proponents counter that most criticism of contingent fees is selfinterested, coming from attorneys who represent insurance companies, corporations, and other defendants in personal injury cases rather than from plaintiffs in personal injury cases. More substantively, they insist that without contingent fees, average citizens would often not bring cases, even when they had suffered real injuries. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1151
Categorization
- XREF: Connects the fairness/equality values in the course description to the practical ability of average citizens to enforce rights. — connects to: Contingent fees expand ordinary citizens’ access to civil courts. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 745; Contingency fees make personal injury the main exception to one-shotters avoiding litigation — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1114; Contingent fees dominate accident and product-injury civil litigation (+5 more)
- SEED: Angle: how fee structures silently rewrite substantive rights by determining who can realistically sue.
Broader Connections
- Contingent fees dominate accident and product-injury civil litigation
#qualifies(1.00) - Law that is non-arbitrary does not make citizens unfree
#complicates(1.00) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 66 - Personal insurance pools natural-disaster risk because location barely affects injury odds
#complicates(0.90) — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process, 1831 - Insurance companies and contingent fees, not courts, drive auto accident resolution
#qualifies(0.90) — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3855 - The right not to testify carries practical risks that often outweigh its protections.
#complicates(0.80) — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 1394 - Stigma from wrongful incarceration is an injury not reducible to monetary damages.
#complicates(0.70) — Dorothy A. Brown, Getting to Reparations, 204