The cost of justice (part 2)

Let me ask again the same question I asked in my last blog – Is the cost of justice in the United States worth the price we pay? Here are some interesting statistics. In 1970, just after I started practicing law in Minnesota, the state’s population was 3,800,000; by 2000 it had grown to 4,900,000, a growth of 29%. During the same period the number of registered lawyers in Minnesota grew by over 400% to a total of 25,100 in 2005, which comes out to about 1 lawyer for every 200 people.

In the year 2000, over 2,000,000 lawsuits were filed in Minnesota, 700,000 alone in Minneapolis. Simply put, the citizens of Minnesota are paying 400% more for legal services today than they were just 30 years ago. Does anyone really believe that the quality of justice has improved by 400% during this time period? I would argue that in many respects, the quality of justice is far inferior today because the cost of justice is far higher. I’ll give you more information about this in a future blog, but let me make it absolutely clear – in my 42 years of trying lawsuits in Minnesota and many other states throughout the United States – the cost in absolute dollars of having a dispute heard in court has totally skyrocketed.

In 1970, a really big case would produce fees around $10,000; today virtually identical cases now routinely produce around $250,000 in fees, and many, many cases cost well over $1 million in legal fees to get resolved. And that’s only the fee on one side. Some cases have 3 or 4 parties each paying that amount in legal fees. I have been involved in many cases where the total fees paid to the attorneys involved far exceeded the amount actually paid to settle the case. How can that kind of expense possibly be justified merely to resolve a single dispute with another person?

My novel, The Litigators takes a real-life look at this issue. Look into it, you may be surprised by what you see really going on inside the legal community.

Join me next week for Is it too easy to file lawsuits in the United States?