Posted On: February 18, 2005, 10:39 am CST

Posted By: Tom Laquercia

If Nick thinks I wrote my comments to justify the lawsuit, then he's misunderstood my position. I responded to the attack on the legal profession as a whole. An old saw: You don't judge a person by his friends, but the lawyer he/she keeps, for the sharp will hire the sharp.
The attorneys who prosecuted the lawsuit against McD were hired by a client, the plaintiff.
Naturally, they could have declined the offer of employment. But they didn't.
Instead they were successful. Sour grapes @ McD's?
Settlements are favored by the courts.
Indeed, it is the public policy of New York at least to do so. McD did not have to settle, however, and neither did the plaintiff. And among the beneficiaries were charitable groups.
In all the comments I've read attacking lawyers, not one has even given lip service to the defense bar which I am a member that has answered and, in many cases, won.
You're flogging a dead horse if you think that a wrong won't be redressed because of the frustration or petulance of some people in the insurance industry. To steal a leaf from Carlos Peniche, the raison d'etre of the entire insurance industry flows from claimants who employ lawyers. Without the potential for p&c claims, the livelihoods as well of the people the industry employs, from agents to underwriters to claims adjusters to defense and coverage counsel like myself and my employees, would evanesce into nothingness. We all are a reaction to these claimants who employ attorneys to right some wrong whose cleverness and financial success perhaps brings out the envy in us all....but regardless of that,in spite of all that, the symbiosis will go on.