Trial lawyers fighting a proposed 20% cap on contingency fees in Nevada say it will cut off access to justice because attorneys won’t be able to earn enough to cover their costs.
Las Vegas attorney Steven Dimopoulos may be the poster child for why such claims are overblown. Check out his Instagram feed: Between boasts about his courtroom prowess are photos of his expensive tastes, including a $493,000 Richard Mille 17-01 Tourbillon, $5,000 bottles of French burgundy and a pair of blondes climbing into a $3.5 million Bugatti Chiron bearing the vanity license plate “LAWSUIT.”
“How many blondes can you fit in a Bugatti?” Dimopoulos asks in the Instagram post, which drew more than 600,000 likes.
Two "blondes" who Las Vegas attorney Steven Dimopoulos tried to fit in his Bugatti.
| Instagram
To hear trial lawyers talk about the Nevada ballot initiative, the fee cap backed by Uber and the retail and trucking industry will practically put lawyers like Dimopoulos out of business. Nevada Justice Association President Jason Mills told the Las Vegas Review-Journal the Nevada ballot initiative “could make it harder for everyday folks in Nevada to get competent representation.”
In a failed lawsuit to block the initiative from going to voters, a trial-lawyer created group argued lawyers have to charge “the industry average rate of 33% to 40% just to stay afloat.”
“A contingency fee is the only way that ordinary people can go toe-to-toe with companies like Uber and vindicate their rights,” wrote Washington superlawyer Deepak Gupta, who represented Uber Sexual Assault Survivors for Legal Accountability and the Nevada Justice Association in their lawsuit. “It is their only `key to the courthouse.’”
Carson City Judge James T. Russell was mildly sympathetic to some of the trial lawyers’ arguments but ultimately rejected their suit in a May 10 ruling allowing the Nevada ballot initiative process to proceed. Lawyers are now expected to mount a vigorous public-relations campaign to defeat the measure at the polls, probably featuring the same talking points as in their lawsuit, including the claim plaintiff attorneys can’t stay in business for a 20% fee.
The claim doesn’t fit the facts in Nevada, however, where trial lawyers have plenty of money to finance political campaigns— $856,000 to state lawmakers in the last cycle, according to The Daily Indy, with a single lawyer-backed political action committee representing the third largest single donor after the Relators and MGM Resorts International. Law firms Lewis Roca and Kaempfer Crowell gave some $137,000 between the two of them. Dimopoulos has given more than $26,000 to Nevada candidates since 2018, according to Followthemoney.org.
Boasting about jackpot verdicts is a trial-lawyer advertising strategy because it encourages potential clients to think they will win big, too. On his website, Dimopoulos claims he wins “Bigger Settlements. Faster Settlements.” He also includes links to articles about how he sued a Bugatti dealer to buy rapper Post Malone’s Chiron, claiming the dealer broke a deal to purchase the 1,500-horsepower supercar for $3.5 million in cash.
Clearly, Steve Dimopoulos knows his audience, and he must be confident they don’t care about his fees. Nevada voters may feel differently when the Nevada ballot initiative makes it to the polls.