I heard a joke about a guy who called a local lawyer and asked him if he would answer two questions for $300. The lawyer replied, “Yes, what’s the second question?” I received this in my email today and it served to remind me that most of our disgust toward the purveyors of the world’s second oldest profession is well founded:

A proposed Settlement has been reached regarding SelectQuote’s alleged disclosure of personal information to Facebook and TikTok through website pixels.

So the defendant company not only violated the law, it also violated the trust of its customers.  I’m not shedding any tears for the accused here.  The fact that they settled the case for multi millions of dollars implies some measure of guilt, at least to me.  Though many of these settlements include language to the effect of “no finding of guilt or innocence on the part of the defendants.”  I don’t know if this one does or not, but it appears to be boilerplate legalese included in many of these kinds of settlements.  The lawyers don’t care about petty matters like guilt and innocence, it’s all about the benjamins! The outrage here is the terms of the settlement.  I myself am not a lawyer, but if I’m understanding this correctly, the customers harmed here, the plaintiffs in the class action suit, will receive a whopping $20 each for their damages while the law firms, appointed by the court, it would appear, (no grift to see here,) receive a staggering $2.75 million in fees and an additional $3,500 per named plaintiff, remember them, the ones who are reaping that $20 windfall. I’m sure these lawyers did some work and provided some service.  When I worked, I didn’t do it for free, and I don’t expect others to either.   For the work they did, they should be compensated.  Which they were, quite handsomely, to the tune of $2.75 million a pop.  But when you do the math for the $20 per plaintiff vs. the $3,500 per plaintiff paid to the law firms, the slice of that pie going to the plaintiffs represents 0.0057 percent, which leaves the other 99.943 percent of this particular pie, for the lawyers. And they wonder why we hate them … No doubt the defense lawyers were paid handsomely for their efforts as well.  A win, win for the legal profession, while hard-working Americans are left, as is usually the case, footing the bill for all of it.  This is a microcosm of everything that is wrong with tort law as practiced in America today and why so many Americans rightfully view lawyers as ambulance-chasing sleazeballs. The cost to society of this is incalculable.  We pay more for everything because businesses know that someday they will find themselves in the crosshairs of the White Shoe Stasi.  And even when it’s warranted, the windfall paid to the lawyers versus the actual dollars to compensate damaged victims is outrageous and egregious. Congress needs to fix this and a healthy measure of contempt for them, mostly lawyers as well, is in order here too.  It shouldn’t be too hard to cap the percentage of the per plaintiff award that can be paid to the lawyers as well as the percentage of any overall settlement that’s paid to them to ensure that a reasonable amount of the money paid by offending parties actually makes its way into the pockets of those who were damaged by their actions instead of providing slush funds for well-connected law firms. So, the next time you laugh at a sleazy lawyer joke or experience a sense of outrage and disgust at their behavior, take a large measure of comfort in the knowledge that it is very well earned.