130 Unit 4 Applied critical thinking
Note that even if there were statistics showing
that since lawyers started advertising, more
dishonest claims have been lodged, that would
not permit an inference that the advertising was
the cause, or that it gave encouragement (see
cause–correlation fallacy in Chapter 2.10). In
Doc 2, however, there is not even a correlation.
We are not given any data on numbers of
dishonest claims before or after advertising
began. C is definitely not a safe conclusion.
D claims that no-win no-fee arrangements,
which on the surface look quite advantageous
for the client, are actually of more benefit to the
lawyers. Assuming that ‘benefit’ means
financial benefit, it is clear from Doc 2 that
lawyers do get some benefit from the way in
which the system works. They may lose money
when the case is unsuccessful, but they have
bigger costs awarded when they do succeed.
Provided they win more cases than they lose,
they should be better off than if they didn’t
take the case at all because the client could not
afford the fee. On the other hand, the client
benefits too, either by winning, or by having
nothing to pay if the case fails. The question is
whether the lawyer benefits more than the
client; and again we find the passage
uninformative. There is simply no data in Doc 2
by which to quantify the gains comparatively.
However, Doc 2 does give strong support to
E. This is because the information in Doc 2 is
mainly explanatory. In particular it explains
how lawyers can afford to take on cases without
charging a fee. When they win a case they get
back around twice their normal costs, to make
up for the fee they would have been paid by the
client, win or lose, under the old system. It is
simple mathematical fact that so long as they
don’t lose more cases than they win, they are
not out of pocket. If they win more cases than
they lose, they make money. We cannot infer
that they do better out of this arrangement
than the clients, as claimed by D. But if Doc 2 is
factually correct, we can quite safely infer E.
If you were really alert you might have
added that E carries the implicit assumptionnumber of claims has risen significantly since
no-win no-fee agreements were introduced,
and probably because of them. Since
conditional-fee agreements give people on low
or middle incomes the chance to pursue
expensive legal actions at no financial risk to
themselves, it is natural to think that there
would be a surge in claims. But the very fact
that B seems so reasonable, and happens to be
widely believed, is precisely why we need to
approach it critically. If you already assume
that no-win no-fee arrangements have resulted
in more personal injury claims, you are likely
to see the passage as grounds for believing it.
But interpreted neutrally, the passage neither
supports B nor disputes it. All that we are told
in Doc 2 is that there are no-win no-fee
arrangements on offer, and how they work. We
are also told that this has prompted stories in
the media, but with no comment on the truth
or falsity of these, or even what they actually
claim. There is no information about the effect
the arrangements have had on numbers or
attitudes. If we stick faithfully to what is
contained in Doc 2, B must be seen as leaping
to an unjustified conclusion.
C, likewise, may seem like a very believable
consequence of advertising for victims,
especially if the advertisements emphasise the
possibility of making big money out of an
accident. Obviously, the worse the harm that
has come to the claimant, the more money
the court is likely to award in damages. So
there would be a temptation for a dishonest
person to cheat by exaggerating or inventing
an injury. But that is very different from
saying, as C does, that the advertising by law
firms and intermediaries encourages cheating.
That is a serious allegation. It is also a little
hard to believe, if it is taken to mean that
lawyers actively encourage dishonesty in the
way they advertise. But even if we interpret C
more charitably to mean that the advertising
has the unintended effect of giving some people
the idea of cheating, there is still no evidence
of any such connection in the passage.