Lawyers for O.C. Have Bankrupt Values

Re: “The High Cost of Going Bankrupt,” Dec. 6.

It you have a lot of money, many attorneys will litigate for you even if you don’t have much of a chance to win. If you’re tight on money, the standard advice is to see if an attorney will take your case on a contingency fee basis--no win, no fee. If two or three attorneys tell you that while you have a marvelous chance of winning, they just can’t quite take your case on contingency, you then drop your plans of going to court.

For Supervisor William G. Steiner to say the “potential benefits for the county” are so great “we really don’t have a choice” is pretty silly. Of course there’s a choice. Go after Merrill Lynch with a law firm willing to take it on contingency or drop it before it costs another $5 million. If it’s such a great potential benefit for the county I’m sure Steiner can find at least one lawyer who will take this great case on contingency.

Attorneys working on contingency don’t have lots of meetings, take it’s-worth-a-shot depositions, bill themselves for expensive meals, or do much of anything that isn’t absolutely essential to winning the case. They almost never appeal a decision on contingency, but an appeal is almost automatic if the county loses the first round against Merrill Lynch because by the time it goes to trial the money spent, which Steiner and the attorneys involved will refer to as “an investment,” will be $10 million or $15 million, and $2 million or $3 million more to appeal will seem like a bargain, a spending decision over which all concerned will say, “We really don’t have a choice.”

MARK DAVIDSON

Costa Mesa

Let me get this straight. Three lawyers, James W. Mercer, Bruce Bennett and J. Michael Hennigan, get together to have a meeting about the Orange County bankruptcy. Each one is billing the county nearly $400 per hour. After 18 minutes, Mercer took off, leaving Bennett and Hennigan still “meeting.” Bennett hung in there another 40 minutes, then he fled. But good old Hennigan continued to “meet” all by himself for another 24 minutes. At $395 per hour, that got him another $158 of my tax money . . . to talk to himself?

The county is a wounded whale and the sharks are in a feeding frenzy.

DEANE BOTTORF

Corona del Mar

Outrageous! Thanks for exposing in a front-page graphic the simultaneous billing to Orange County taxpayers by three attorneys of the same firm. Try as I might to believe that lawyers in general get a bad rap, examples of this type continually surface to validate my contempt for the profession.

RICHARD MATHEWS

Brea