Washington state just agreed to pay $80 million to two children who had been severely injured when left in their biological parents care due to negligence by DYCF caseworkers. 40% ($32 million) of that went to the law firm who represented them. Link in the comments.
The injuries the children suffered are tragic and should never have happened. I am not sure that the outcome of this case is justice though… Why do us taxpayers have to pay a law firm $32 million that didn’t even go through a trial? Why should taxpayers have to foot the $48 million to the children for what their own parents did?
I think in cases like this, every state employee involved all the way up the chain should be fired from their jobs. The state employee unions should be required to foot at least half of the bill.
And the state “negotiators” who offered this pretrial settlement should be fired and litigators willing to push for reasonable taxpayer settlements hired.
Attorney compensation laws should be amended to disallow extremely oversized payouts like this to attorneys, perhaps capping all legal fees in cases involving federal, state, or local governments as defendants at reasonable attorneys fees (hourly rate * reasonable hours estimate).