The Issue with Arbitration Clauses
Arbitration clauses in attorney-client fee contracts are bullsh*t.
Even some plaintiffs personal injury firms include arbitration clauses in their fee contracts with clients. Morgan & Morgan is one of them.
Morgan & Morgan requires its clients to arbitrate disputes that arise out of the attorney-client relationship, including any malpractice claims and fee disputes. In other words, if Morgan & Morgan is negligent and commits malpractice, the client has no right to go to court and have a jury decide the case. The client has to go to arbitration.
This is even though Morgan & Morgan attacks arbitration clauses on its own website. While making its own clients sign arbitration agreements, Morgan & Morgan says this about such agreements: “The reality is, these are corporate attempts to strip you of your Constitutional right to a trial by jury.”
If you’re a trial lawyer, you should be fighting against arbitration clauses. You shouldn’t be including them in your own fee contracts with your clients.
What does it say if you are a plaintiffs’ firm that should be fighting to uphold the 7th Amendment’s right to trial by jury, yet you require that your own clients contractually sign away that right when hiring you?