Would it be fair to limit what CEOs earn, such as no more than, say, 10x his company's lowest paid employee? If not why not?

Better yet, should states limit insurance defense attorneys' hourly rates when they are defending personal injury lawsuits? If a 20% contingent fee works out to $25/hour for the plaintiff's lawyer (who must then pay his staff and cover other overhead expenses), why should the defendant's lawyer be free to charge $400 an hour? Plus, the defense attorney gets paid regardless of the result. If he loses that MSJ, he still gets to submit his bill to State Farm pursuant to his contract. As a plaintiffs' lawyer, if I lose that same MSJ, I just ate $12,000 in case expenses and won't get paid for mine and my staff's 100 hours of work.

People who are injured rarely have money to pursue their claims. Multi-billion dollar insurers like Allstate, State Farm, and Progressive know this. They delay, deny, and defend claims they know they owe because they have done the math: Few claimants will have the resources to outlast the insurer's shenanigans; few claimants will have the will and determination the insurers do; and relatively few claims are even worth the time, trouble, and expense to take all the way to trial. If an insurer offers $5,000 on a claim worth $50,000, some claimants will actually take that insulting offer instead of filing a lawsuit and going to court. They know that 1/3 of that $50k would go to the lawyer and 1/3 might have to be paid back to their health insurer anyway. So that 1/3 for them? Well, it's not worth waiting 24-48 months and enduring the stess of record keeping, potential surveillance, depositions, mediation, trial, and more to get it. They take an unfair or even insulting settlement offer and move on.

Because 99% of US claimants do not have the resources to hire an attorney when they are out of work due to injury (and have medical and other bills piling up), contingent fees are permitted in all or most jurisdictions.

Attorneys can compete with each other (and often do) with respect to their contingent fee rates and other terms. An attorney and a client could agree to, for example, a 20% contingent rate for the appropriate case under appropriate circumstances. But that would be the choice of the parties to the contract. The problem with interfering with attorneys' contracts is that meritorious cases that have a lower value or that are more expensive to litigate will not be pursued. "I'm sorry client you have a case but we will lose money helping you with this. You're on your own against the insurance giant who has 75 lawyers in this city on speed dial. Good luck."

Here is an article about the challenges of medical malpractice claims. I share it with some of the medical malpractice clients we decline to represent (I would estimate we decline more than 95% of medical cases we evaluate) to help them understand why we can't help them. Iirc the article isn't about capping fees, but the same concept applies: If state legislatures make certain types of claims less lucrative for attorneys, many, many people with legitimate claims will lose access to the courts.



I get that you hate trial lawyers and your attitude is certainly not unique in this country but you really have no idea what you are talking about.