Saw this chuckleworthy piece over at Overlawyered:
A team of researchers led by Richard Gun, visiting research fellow at Adelaide University, ‘has found patients who engage a lawyer after receiving their injury are five times less likely ever to return to work.’ They also appear to suffer more pain and for longer periods than accident victims who do not have lawyers.
Even allowing for an expected correlation between the two variables — persons with more serious injuries are presumably more likely to retain lawyers — legal representation appears to have an independent effect in prolonging the process of recovery, Sun says.
According to the study’s abstract, among 147 car accident victims suffering from whiplash, ‘consulting a lawyer was associated with less improvement in NPOS (P < 0.05), … [and was also] associated with a lesser chance of claim settlement (P < 0.01) and a greater chance of still having treatment (P < 0.01) after 1 year’. Is this another example of the Lionel Hutz effect? Or, perhaps:
Hutz: All right, gentlemen, I’ll take your case. But I’m going to have to ask for a thousand-dollar retainer.
Bart: A thousand dollars? But your ad says “No money down”.
[shows his paper ad: “Works on contingency basis. No money down.”]
Hutz: Oh! They got this all screwed up…
[makes a few corrections: “Works on contingency basis? No, money down!”]
Bart: So you don’t work on a contingency basis?
Hutz: No, money down! Oops, it shouldn’t have this Bar Association logo here either.
Or, while we’re on a roll here, this delightful exchange.
