Litigation

The viral discourse over a law student's draft paper continues. Talk about "wasteful dissipation" of irreplaceable time.

Today Matt Bracy offers his perspective on Jeremy Babener's revelation that essentially the "90% dissipation in 5 years" is "a crock of shit". Bracy expands this revelation to a broad generalization that he entitled "The Dissipation Myth", which begs the question of just how closely he read Babener's draft paper.

So the "90% in 5 years" stat is Harvey the Rabbit? But isn't Babener simply attacking the statistic and opining that there needs to be an empirical study to support public policy?  Doesn't Babener recognize the extensive anectdotal evidence?  If there is extensive anecdotal evidence then dissipation can neither be logically described as a "myth", nor the logic of discussing human frailties flawed or inappropriate. Look at this frickin' financial crisis America is in. Isn't compulsive and excessive spending by American consumers a major factor in this crisis?

Bracy slaps away "the predominant real market for structured settlement brokers is insurance companies and trial lawyers. To that market, the concept of the incompetent claimant plays well". How would Bracy know what plays well when neither he nor his company market structured settlments to insurance companies?

Perhaps "anecdotal evidence" works both ways.

As I wrote in my original June 24, 2009 commentary, I'm not sure that many settlement professionals are actively pushing the "hand me down"  "90% in 5" statistic anyway. Bracy's kitchy quotation of Mark Twain "three kinds of lies, lies, damned lies and statistics" just reminds me of the embarassment of a law school paper (in my opinion) penned by former Indiana law Student Laura J. Koenig on a similar subject. He's better than that!

But what I really want to know is how much more is yet to be milked by commentators about the "90% in 5" before Jeremy Babener issues his final draft?