DISCUSSION: If you read the full sentence, this limit on lawyers’ fees is to prevent lawyers from “eroding just compensation to clients” and to prevent lawyers from “gaining disproportionately”.
That means the commission is worried that lawyers would take more than they deserve, and leave clients with too little.
___________
- “Monetary value” is a hard thing to pin down. Suppose the lawyer and client expected to received $1,000,000, and the lawyer was to get 20% of the award. So they valued the lawyer’s work at $200,000.
But then the judge awards $2,000,000. The lawyer got more than the “monetary value” of their services, but the client isn’t unhappy: they got more money!
So this isn’t exactly the situation the commission is trying to avoid. - CORRECT. This is better than A. Legal awards are unpredictable. “Gaining disproportionately” means gaining in a greater proportion than you should. And proportion means “percent”. So the commission doesn’t want lawyers’ earnings to be too large a percent of the total award. Which is what this answer means (“portion” also equals percent).
- This is a trap. The issue isn’t what a client considers unfair: clients can be irrational. Instead, the commission is likely speaking of a more neutral view of what’s proportionate. (i.e. What would reasonable outside observers think?)
- In any contingency arrangement, the lawyer gets more if they win. So, this answer isn’t what the commission was trying to prevent: their proposal is a contingency proposal, so the lawyer would get more if they win.
- Judge and jury intentions are never mentioned, so this can’t be the right answer.
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Daniel Choi says
I have a question why answer choice E is not correct, as the passage mentions “just compensation of the plaintiff is not eroded”. I assumed that the “just” compensation meant that the award should not go against what was decided by the courts. Is answer choice B better in the sense that the passage as a whole describes the type of risk that the lawyer has to assume? Thanks in advance.