The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1897-10-13
AMBULANCE CHASERS.
Lawyers Who Hustle for the Victims
of Accidents.

Quick Work Made Necessary by Compe-
tition-Tricks to Get Clients-Extortion-
Reasons for the Prejudice Against These
Lawyers.
New York SUM-
The activity of New York's accident
LAWYERS, more commonly known as am
bulance ohasers, has frequently been COM
mented on, and not very long ago there
was a proposition that one OF the legal
associations should inquire into their
business methods.a If no such inVestlga-
ton is made it is believed by the most
reputable attorneys that some other steps
must be taken soon to restrict the enter
prise of the ambulance chasers.
The stories told of these men are fire.
quently humorous, and the traditional
dignity of the profession, which is sub
jected to many shocks nowadays, suffers
moro from their conduct than from that
of any other branch of the business. A
prompt call at the hospitals after the
an accident would be looked upon as q
very conservative and old-fashioned way
of doing business nowadays. There are
quarters of the city in which fifteen min
utes after an accident the corporations in
surfing the victim are apt to receive word
that his legal representative is prepared
to deal with the company. such aston1sh-
ing evidences of enterprise come usually
from the lower east side, where anybody
who witnesses an accident knows that
money will probably be paid to the VIC
tim. So the man in the crowd who
thinks of it first runs TO nearby lawyer
offlce-and they are very common on the
lower east side-tells one of the lawyers,
and has him on the spot before the am
bulance arrives. He is, OF course, paid
for the tip. The victim may or may not
but it requires only slight encouragement
of the lawyers proposal to make his ap-
pointment satisfactory to him. So the
victim is carried off to the hospital, leav-
ing behind him an agent authoriZed-to
the agents own satisfaction at least-to
get as much as he possibly can out of the
insuring corporation.
cororations that insure workmen mani
fest toward these lawyers is the fact that
the proportion of the money paid which
reaches the victim of accident is very
small. This feature of the business has
already brought to light several scandals
that have caused for the lawyers implicat-
ed trouble nearly serious enough to ac-
complish just what the attorneys opposed
to them are anxious for. One notable
instance happened several years ago. A
man had his arm severely injured in an
accident, for which his employers were
plainly responsible. He went to large
down town office building in search of q
lawyer, and wandered into one office.
Before he came out of it lawyer had
contracted to take his case for so per cent
of the money recovered. The lawyer
saw the officers of the company which in
sured the mans employers, and disoov-
cred that they would pay 81, 500. When
he learned that the sum to be paid would
be SO much larger than he had expected
he made new arrangement with his
client to the effect that the client was to
receive only rs per cent of the amount re-
covered. Then he got the "a, 500, gave
one quarter of it to the victim, and kept
the rest. The man, who was unable to
work, lived as long as he could on the
money, and when it had all been spent
went in search of lawyer again. This
time he found another lawyer, and when
he was telling his story in the hope of
being able to get more money out of his
employers, he mentioned the division
which he had made with his attorney.
The first lawyer would have been dis
his former client with the deduction of
no more than fair amount for his ser
vices.
The number of lawyers who have be-
come we'll known in the business is not
large. The greater share of the business
goes to comparatively small number,
and they ore the most illustrious hustlers
49, 10 f<<r,1 Go 4
the survival Of the fttest are doctrines
that are exhibited more strikingly in this
business than in any other. One exam
pie of the way in which they go to work
may be found in a case reported last
week. A woman was knocked down in
Park row, sympathetic crowd gathered
around her, and one man, leaning for
ward, thrust business card into her
closed hand. 1t was there when she got
to the hos sital, and when the man whose
name it bore presented himself to see her
the next morning, he was, Of course, adj
mitted. He got5the case. too.
The regular course of business Is for
the lawyer to follow the entries of acct
dents on the blotters of the police stations
and the hospitals These they study in
defatigably. The old plan of waiting for
the accounts of accidents in the papers
has gone entirely out Of vogue excepting
SO far as the late editions of the evening
newspapers supply the news of accidents.
The customary way is to go to the hospi-
tai to which the police records or the
newspapers say that the patient has been
taken. There, after the entry has been
studied, the lawyer represents himself as
a relative of the victim, and SO gains &C.
cess to the patient, as some pretence is
made of keeping the lawyers out of the
hospitals. AS Bellevue is city hospital
and more readily accessible than the
others, majority of the cases, naturally
enough, come from this institution. The
presence o the lawyers in any hospital is
against the rules and Is brought about
usually by the complacency of subordi-
mates who are open to persuasion.
The work of the ambulance chaser is
difficult. Possibly his knowledge of law
does not have to be as great as his dex-
terity and quickness. The most impor-
tant requisite of the business is to be on
the ground first. A man who is one Of
the best in his business puzzled his rivals
by the number of clients he was able to
receive. Only after long time did they
discover that his wife was his untiring
assistant and helped him in his daily
rounds of the hospitals. While he takes
one side of town she takes the other. A
compapv that iS in this bI1Siness oUac