As a trial lawyer in N.Y. and PA, I am constantly asked about “frivolous” lawsuits. My answer is simple. First, my firm does NOT bring frivolous lawsuits because they are bad business. Second, the reliable national data confirms that the number of so-called “frivolous” lawsuits are grossly exaggerated.Smart lawyers are in business to make money, not lose it. You make money by handling good cases, NOT frivolous ones. Good lawyers know what is required to bring a successful case and they carefully select the cases they will accept and reject the “junk” cases.Why not accept every case? Because ALL cases, whether legitimate or frivolous, take a lot of time and cost a lot of money so smart lawyers know that they want to focus their time and spend their money on those cases where the likelihood of success is high. Pursuing a borderline or frivous case just doesn’t make any sense.Personal injury and medical malpractice cases are usually handled on a contingency fee basis– the attorney’s fee is roughly 33% of the recovery. No recovery, no fee. So, if you take a bad case and recover nothing, your fee is ZERO. You don’t stay in business long if you don’t make any money. And that’s why most lawyers don’t take frivolous cases.That’s not to say that there aren’t some bad lawyers out there who make a bad name for all the good lawyers by bringing lousy cases but quite frankly the number of those frivolous cases are much less than you might be led to believe by the media. Let’s face it, the media picks and chooses those cases they publicize and it’s a lot more sensational to print a story about some crazy case than it is to talk about a legitimate case where someone merely got fairly compensated for the injuries caused to them.Frivolous-lawsuit claims are overblown. They’re circulated by powerful corporate interests that want to escape accountability for the dangerous products they market to the public. Government agencies that track civil suits report declining numbers. The real problem is the insurance industry gouging physicians. Annual statements of the 15 largest companies handling malpractice insurance show that premium collections increased by 120 percent between 2000 and 2004, while claims rose by only 5.7 percent. The rate of premium increase was 21 times greater than the rate of increase in claims payments during the same period. None of that has anything to do with lawsuits and everything to do with the insurance industry stuffing its pockets at the expense of the American public.Thanks for reading, Jim Reed jreed@zifflaw.com