Some lawyers around the country probably stand to be paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour of actual work. Cox argues that the state governments, all of which employ herds of lawyers, had no need to hire outside lawyers for litigation that involved no novel techniques or arcane theories. And hiring them on a contingency fee basis made a mockery of that problematic form of compensation. Contingency fee arrangements, under which a lawyer is paid nothing if his side loses and a fixed percentage of the settlement if his side wins, have traditionally been deemed unethical. Contingency fees still are unlawful in Britain and most of the rest of the world.
State government can pay such a fee.
The states' tobacco lawyers demand, with more brass than plausibility, that their fees be treated as an island immune from Congress' general jurisdiction over the settlement. Not that there is a settlement. E.W. Scripps Publications , All Rights Reserved. Site users are subject to our User Agreement . We also have a Privacy Policy .