Young Law Blog

Amarillo Businesses Should Rethink How They Pay Their Lawyers

Amarillo businesses may want to rethink how they pay their lawyers in certain cases.

Some of the America’s top firms are embracing the concept of hiring clients on a contingent fee or flat fee. This allows businesses to share risk with their lawyers when pursuing what if often extremely expensive litigation and in which there are no guarantees of recovery.

According to a March 7, 2006 Wall Street Journal article, there is a growing number of cases in which the contingent fee was used. For example, Research in Motion, which makes the popular Blackberry phone, hired Wiley Rain, LLP in Washington to represent them in a multi-million dollar patent infringement case. Similarly, Bran Cave LLP in St. Louis won a $75 million dollar verdict in a case on behalf of Biomedical Systems Corp. of St. Louis.

Although paying lawyers by the hour is the traditional approach, and one that is well-suited to many types of case (particularly where a company is defending, rather than prosecuting a lawsuit), the contingent fee arrangement can be a boon to both lawyer in client under the right circumstances.

Watch for Truck Drivers on Amarillo's Interstate

Tougher regulations are needed in the notoriously dangerous trucking industry.  Often paid by the mile or by the load, truckers are pressured to drive as fast and as far as possible, often going many hours without rest and doctoring log books to show only a fraction of the actual hours spent behind the wheel. 

Anyone who has driven on Interstate 40 in

Amarillo

has undoubtedly had “close calls” with a truck. According to industry analysts quoted in the March 13, 2007

Wyoming

,

Arkansas

and

Oklahoma

were the deadliest states for truck crashes in 2005.

5,380 people died in 1999 in crashes with big trucks. In 2005, that figure remained almost the same at 5,212 deaths.

The Truck Safety Coalition and Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways have called on the Motor Carrier Safety Administration to reduce the number of hours that truckers may drive without rest, increase safety inspections of big trucks, require onboard electronic monitors to ensure compliance with hours-of-service rules, and train drivers better.