The likelihood that the child
known as Stormi is suffering from separation anxiety or
some other psychological disorder cannot be ignored.
Stormi is living in a foster home. While it may be safe
and necessary, foster care is intended to separate the
child from the birth parent. This can lead to
psychological disorders like separation anxiety
disorder.
Separation anxiety occurs as the result of loss or
separation from the birth parent. Disruption in a
child’s home environment can lead to stress, depression,
and anxiety. Living in a foster home even under the best
conditions can be stressful to a young person.
Separation anxiety disorder and other psychological
disorders can masquerade as gender dysphoria, leading
caregivers and medical practitioners to misdiagnose and
not provide proper or effective psychotherapies.
Stormi’s life will evolve as maturity unfolds. Most
likely in 15 or 20 years, reality will set in that he
really never changed genders. This is often a turning
point where the trans life is not looking as good as it
once did.
Thankfully, like me, many transgender persons return to
the gender they once shed. Slowly they restore the life
that was lost.
The three men who came up with the idea of changing boys
into girls and making transgenders, Alfred Kinsey, Harry
Benjamin, and John Money, were pedophilia advocates.
(For more of the history, see
“Sex Change” Surgery: What Bruce Jenner, Diane Sawyer,
and You Should Know.)
The neighbor man was correct about one thing: The Girl
Scout at his door was really a boy in a dress—just like
I was as a young boy who thought I was a girl. |
Lawrence W.
Schonbrun is a nationally recognized authority on
the issue of the reasonableness of attorneys' fee
awards in class actions. He has appeared on behalf
of unnamed class members in approximately 200 class
actions throughout the United States. A New York
City native now living in Northern California, he
received his undergraduate degree from the
University of Vermont in 1966 and his law degree
from Boston College Law School in 1969.
Mr. Schonbrun has
been featured on John Stossel's ABC special, "The
Trouble With Lawyers," as well as Morley Safer's 60
Minutes report, "The Disaster That Wasn't." He
has also testified before the United States Congress
on the issue of attorney contingency fees and before
the California Senate Judiciary Committee on class
action reform legislation. His work in the field of
class actions has been chronicled in The Wall
Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, The
Washington Post, Barron's, BusinessWeek, Bloomberg
Business News Service, and American Thinker.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/nov/29/new-poster-child-for-class-action-abuse/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The
results of this suit are the topic of today's program:
http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S222996.PDF
A battle is now being waged in the California Supreme
Court over how much money courts should pay attorneys
from class action settlements. The case will have
national implications. What's at stake is whether
attorneys are to be paid based on a percentage of the
settlement or based on the legal services they provide
to the class. Also at issue is whether a class guardian
will be appointed to protect against excessive
attorneys' fee requests by class counsel.
The Laffitte case
is an employment dispute, in which the class's recovery
was $19 million. The plaintiffs' lawyers were awarded
33% of their clients' fund, which amounted to $6.3
million. This was the equivalent of being paid at
partner rate of $1,597.50 per hour. The difference
between a payment for legal services provided as opposed
a percentage of the settlement is a windfall profit for
the attorneys. Every dollar of fees is a dollar that
does not go to a class member.
Excessive Class
Action Attorneys’ Fees on Trial
By Lawrence W. Schonbrun
A class member in a landmark
class action lawsuit is hoping that California will live
up to its reputation as a national trendsetter—this time
in the area of how attorneys get paid in class action
litigation. The California Supreme Court is considering
a case which could level the playing field between class
members and class action attorneys during the
fee-setting process. The Court’s decision could affect
the allocation of billions of dollars, both in
California and nationally. Ultimately, the case will
determine how many of those dollars remain in the hands
of class members—on whose behalf the class action
mechanism was originally designed—and how many of those
dollars are to be diverted to the lawyers who litigate
these lawsuits through judicial awards of attorneys’
fees.
The class member that I represent is asking the Supreme
Court to confirm its landmark ruling in Serrano v.
Priest. In that case, California's highest court
ruled that attorneys' fee awards were not to be
based on a percentage of the class's settlement
recovery, but rather on the value of the legal services
performed by the attorneys. The rationale for the
decision was that courts were routinely overpaying class
counsel by using the percentage method. The Supreme
Court was concerned that this jeopardized the public's
respect for the judicial system and the integrity of the
bar.
The current case, Laffitte
v. Robert Half International, is an employment law
dispute, in which the class settled for $19 million.
From this amount, the plaintiffs' lawyers sought 33-1/3%
of the recovery, or $6.3 million. The attorneys sought
payment for their work equivalent to a partner rate of
$1,597.50 per hour! Every dollar of that is a dollar
that does not go to a class member.
Class action attorneys assert they should be paid like
lawyers that take personal injury cases on contingency.
The traditional percentage in one-plaintiff/one law-firm
contingent fee litigation is one-third. However, class
actions are profoundly different from contingent fee
litigation. In class actions, clients never have any
contact with the lawyers who represent them and have not
agreed to a fee prior to the commencement of the
litigation. When a case settles, the attorneys' fee is
determined by a judge, who is supposed to protect class
members from excessive attorneys' fee requests.
Class action attorneys argue that the award of a fixed
percentage of their clients' recovery is necessary to
attract skilled lawyers to take such cases. The problem
in class actions, however, may be that there is too much
incentive, not too little. Take, for example, the class
action against Volkswagen after recent disclosures of
corporate wrongdoing. More than 500 separate class
action lawsuits have been filed in the United States,
each one seeking to represent the entire class of
deceived car purchasers. No problem attracting
attorneys here!
The attorneys claim a fixed percentage incentivizes
lawyers to get the most they can for their clients in
settlement. That sounds reasonable—until one remembers
that law is a profession and attorneys have a duty of
loyalty to their client. It is the very foundation of
professional responsibility.
These lawyers also argue that trial courts are too busy
to calculate the fee based on the work done for the
class because this would require judges to scrutinize
lengthy bills listing each service performed by each
attorney in the litigation.
Class counsel's arguments in our case all revolve around
incentivizing attorneys to work in the best interests of
their clients and on minimizing the burden on the
judiciary. The interests of class members are sadly
absent, despite being the justification for the very
existence of the class action mechanism. The interests
of plaintiffs' lawyers and judges take precedence in the
minds of class counsel.
The American judicial system is based on adversarial
presentations to the court. The judge chooses between
opposing positions argued by the two sides. Our case
asks the California Supreme Court to bring its originalSerrano
III decision into the 21st Century by creating a
more class member-protective system. We seek to have
the high court require that trial courts appoint class
guardians to represent the interests of class members
during the fee determination process.
At the fee-setting stage, the attorneys for the class
are not representing their clients. They are seeking to
maximize their fee—inherently at the expense of their
clients! A class guardian would scrutinize attorneys'
time records and provide a report to the judge. When
the class attorneys hire experts to give their fee
requests a "professional blessing," class guardians
would be able to hire opposing experts. Guardians would
provide the class with representation in the fee
determination process by offering vigorous opposition to
balance the forcefully argued position of class counsel
seeking to maximize their fee awards. Filling in the
missing adversarial role for the class would make the
fee determination process more consistent with American
principles of justice.
—Lawrence W. Schonbrun is the Berkeley, California
attorney for the petitioning class member in the
Laffitte case.
|
