You folks have no idea how you have been misled by the insurance industry into blaming plaintiff's attorneys for jury awards. I love the comment earlier about the attorney putting in "20-25 hours" or so for a case like this. Most likely the hours run in the thousands, and the costs of complying with all the frivolous discovery and deposition requests will likely have the firm investing a million or more on the outcome. If they get a jury that has a religious zealot as its foreman, as happened once that I know of in Knoxville, TN, they might just decide that it was God's will that the woman died, and find for the defendant.
Litigation costs are driven by the defense, not the plaintiff. The awards have to reflect the costs else justice will be denied to someone who deserves it.
Don’t you remember the tobacco settlement where the lawyers claimed what amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars per HOUR in fees? I don’t have any sympathy for the “long hours” these scum suckers put in. All they are after is the big payoff. I laugh when I hear that a trial attorney DOES put in a lot of money and time and comes up empty. I wish it happened more often.
Yes, it's all the defense's fault. They should just cough up however many million dollars silky pony or one of his ilk names, and not waste a court's time.
Justifying compensation from someone else by the time you chose to put into something he didn't ask for or want is obscene. We all pay for it.