How do I interest a lawyer in a constitutional violation of property tax law?

[zddoodah]

It's real simple. A lawyer will take a case on contingency if he/she believes that:

X * Y * Z > A

- X is most likely recovery in dollars
- Y is the most likely financial recovery
- Z is the contingent fee percentage
- A is the amount of money that the lawyer could earn working on other matters in the time it would take him/her to work on your case.

For example, if the attorney thinks there's an 80% chance of recovering $80,000, and that he/she would earn a 40% contingent fee, and the case will take 50 hours of the lawyer's time, then it's worth it for the lawyer to take the case if his/her non-contingent billing rate is less than $512 per hour. However, if the same case will take 100 hours, and the lawyer's billing rate is $300 per hour, then it's not worth the risk.

Class actions are particularly risky. Some firms specialize in class actions. They have the potential for huge fee awards, but their success rate is very low.

 

[quincy]

It's real simple. A lawyer will take a case on contingency if he/she believes that:

X * Y * Z > A

X * Y * Z > A or the lawyer believes the case deserves to be heard and is willing/able to take a loss

Money is not always the driving force.

 

[Taxing Matters]

X * Y * Z > A or the lawyer believes the case deserves to be heard and is willing/able to take a loss

Money is not always the driving force.

Or the lawyer sees that the case has the potential to bring in additional business that will be good money makers and thus is willing to take on a case that itself won't pay much. For example, if the case will receive some media attention that can provide valuable advertising for the firm.

 

[quincy]

Or the lawyer sees that the case has the potential to bring in additional business that will be good money makers and thus is willing to take on a case that itself won't pay much. For example, if the case will receive some media attention that can provide valuable advertising for the firm.

Right.

The case I am most familiar with involved a friend’s small law firm in Pennsylvania that represented, without expectation of recovering costs, a large group of children and their families in a private race discrimination lawsuit against a swim club. The attorney filed the families’ complaint first with the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission for investigation (a required first filing in Pennsylvania for discrimination cases) and the case was later referred by the PHRC to the Department of Justice for investigation. The DOJ reached a settlement agreement with the swim club defendants, resulting in $1.1 million for the plaintiffs (and their attorneys). The settlement resolved the private suit and resolved the additional separate discrimination claims filed with the PHRC.

What was seemingly a relatively small case (albeit with a large number of plaintiffs) was taken on by a small law firm because a small-firm attorney saw beyond money to the need of the families for legal assistance. This not only provided positive national media attention for the lawyer’s small firm, helping it grow, but it also had the unexpected bonus of a large payout for his firm and his clients.

Sometimes people do things just because they are the right thing to do. This is evidenced in more than the legal profession, of course, but it tends to fly against what many people think about attorneys.