You Had Me At Your Inital Offer

Article in the NYT re a fascinating study about settlement vs. going to trial. Punchline is plaintiffs suing under a contingency fee arrangement are much more likely to get less after trial than the defense. Sounds like people are not reading/watching A Civil Action. More seriously, the article somewhat hints at this, but Tversky and Kahneman predicted this sort of behavior decades ago. As such, I take issue with the criticism that there's something wrong with the profession for not changing. On the flip side, I'd be very curious to see about plaintiffs who have hourly arrangements. My hunch is they'd pressure their attorneys to settle even before discovery has concluded.