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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

Due to health care inequalities people are talking about single payer where the government is the only payer.

However, an even bigger problem is legal inequalities. Rich people can afford top legal representation and poor people cannot. We should instead have single payer legal representation. Lawyers are required to charge a standard fee and are paid by the government for their work. They are not allowed to accept payments in addition to the standard government payment or to take contingency fees.

Doing this would ensure that the poor in America are not disadvantaged due to the rich having better lawyers.

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Standard fee is a good idea. It works in Germany. Another idea is to have a portion of legal fees go to offering counsel. If you spend five million on lawyers, I get two and a half million for my lawyers.

Really reduces the incentive for overspending the opposing party and encourages cheap quick settlements.

Two problems, first is this would either end all class-action lawsuits, or spawn way too many of them. If a lawyer is guaranteed an hourly rate to work any case, then why wouldn't they? Currently, there's a natural limit on class-actions based on the validity (chance of winning) of the case. Since most people can't pay for the hundreds (or thousands) of hours of work necessary, they're all on contingency. If contingency is no longer possible, then how would class-actions be regulated?

Second issue is that there is a huge variance in the skill of lawyers and that skill has huge impacts on the outcome of cases. It'd be just like fixing the pay of software engineers in terms of results.

I don't know why more people don't say this. I agree 1000%. This should absolutely be the case. Why should anyone have a lower probability of winning a lawsuit just because they're poor?

Because no one has yet come up with a better system that works.

If there exists differences in skill, then there exists arbitrage opportunity. How one can prevent that arbitrage opportunity from being used in order to keep things “fair”, I do not know and have not heard of any compelling ideas.

One of the ideas I heard about recently that I think could do well in helping address the issue is "Investable Lawsuits". This would allow potential lawsuits to crowdsource lawyer fees and get returns on this investment out of the winnings. While this might not help address the cost of representation (although it might as lawyers would work for a smaller upfront fee then a larger take of the winning if it was done pro bono), but it would help the lower and middle class individuals take on corporations and the rich.

There's quite a lot about this that I like, but I think we need a way to handle investigations. Let's say I think I'm innocent and that a blood test might prove it. Who decides whether I can order one done? What if the government decides that it's not a valid expense?

Similarly, can I have expert testimony at my trial? Can everybody?

Isn't there already quite a few lawyers that will take a case on contingency? Usually this is based on whether the client has a legitimate/strong case, and in that way is self regulating. With healthcare there's no incentive to take on a case for free because there's no payout for a positive outcome.

    Lawyers are required to charge a standard fee and 
    are paid by the government for their work.

Your goal is noble and I agree with it, but surely we need to recognize that some legal cases require orders of magnitude more effort and resources than others. I don't know how a standard fee could possibly cover this, even if we had different standard fees for different classes of crime.

Just like we do with doctors and Medicare. Treating someone for a cold requires much less resources than doing a liver transplant. They submit a detailed invoice stating all the work they did and the justification for it. Each item of work has a standard reimbursement rate.

That'd be the end of any chance of suing the government. A large number of Trump's proposed policies (eg. the Muslim ban) would've passed through without resistance because no lawyer is going to sue the organization that signs their paychecks.

We already have the concept of separation of powers. Judges are paid by the government, but issue injunctions agains and rule against the government all the time. We make sure that this is under the purview of the judiciary.

> However, an even bigger problem is Smart Phone inequalities. Rich people can afford top iPhones and poor people cannot. We should instead have single payer phone system. OEMs are required to charge a standard fee and are paid by the government for their work. They are not allowed to accept payments in addition to the standard government payment or to take contingency fees.

But there is so many issues with the government taking on _more_ responsibility in our lives (like they usually do things worse). Not to mention in US, we are guaranteed right to lawyer in defense, for equality, and those lawyers make way less than private lawyers, so presumable there is a difference in quality (or something else?). Additionally, its common to see legal fees part of law suits like this zappos suit), so lawyers can work for poor people because they get paid when they win a suit, which is their job anyways.

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