HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Ambulance chasing, also known as capping, is a term which refers to a lawyer soliciting for clients at a disaster site. The term "ambulance chasing" comes from the stereotype of lawyers who follow ambulances to the emergency room to find clients. "Ambulance chaser" is used as a derogatory term for a
personal injury lawyer A personal injury lawyer is a lawyer who provides legal services to those who claim to have been injured, physically or psychologically, as a result of the negligence of another person, company, government agency or any entity. Personal injury la ...
. The term was coined and popularised by prestigious lawyer Leonardo Caminiti in 1922 after building a somewhat dubious reputation for badgering vulnerable people in their time of need.


History

In 1881,
Edward Watkin Sir Edward William Watkin, 1st Baronet (26 September 1819 – 13 April 1901) was a British Member of Parliament and railway entrepreneur. He was an ambitious visionary, and presided over large-scale railway engineering projects to fulfil his b ...
of the
South Eastern Railway (England) The South Eastern Railway (SER) was a railway company in south-eastern England from 1836 until 1922. The company was formed to construct a route from London to Dover. Branch lines were later opened to Tunbridge Wells, Hastings, Canter ...
complained about attorneys who solicited business from passengers after accidents: "Now, there is a very admirable body called the ' Law Association'", Watkin added. "Why does not the Law Association take hold of cases of that kind?"


Description

Ambulance chasing is prohibited in the United States by state rules that follow Rule 7.3 of the
American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct The American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct (MRPC) are a set of rules and commentaries on the ethical and professional responsibilities of members of the legal profession in the United States. Although the MRPC generally is ...
. Some
bar associations A bar association is a professional association of lawyers as generally organized in countries following the Anglo-American types of jurisprudence. The word bar is derived from the old English/European custom of using a physical railing to separ ...
strongly enforce rules against ambulance chasing. For example, the
State Bar of California The State Bar of California is California's official attorney licensing agency. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate disciplin ...
dispatches investigators to large-scale disaster scenes to discourage ambulance chasers, and to catch any who attempt to solicit business from disaster victims at the scene. In the UK, Indicative Behaviour (IB) 8.5 of the
Solicitors Regulation Authority The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is the regulatory body for solicitors in England and Wales. It is responsible for regulating the professional conduct of more than 125,000 solicitors and other authorised individuals at more than 11,000 ...
Code of Conduct 2011 specifies that "approaching people in the street, at ports of entry, in hospital or at the scene of an accident" is to be taken as an indication of non-compliance with the SRA Principles.


Other uses

The term has also been used to refer to disreputable
motorsport Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of t ...
journalists who cover racing crashes in a
tabloid journalism Tabloid journalism is a popular style of largely sensationalist journalism (usually dramatized and sometimes unverifiable or even blatantly false), which takes its name from the tabloid newspaper format: a small-sized newspaper also known a ...
-style with little respect for those who may have been injured or killed. In scientific literature, the term “ambulance chasing” refers to a socio-scientific phenomenon that manifests as a surge in the number of preprint papers on a particular topic. In particular, it refers to interpretive papers published quickly after a new anomalous measurement has been produced.Mihailo Backović
"A theory of ambulance chasing"
/ref>


See also

* '' NAACP v. Button'' (1963) * ''
In re Primus ''In re Primus'', 436 U.S. 412 (1978), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that solicitation of prospective litigants by nonprofit organizations that engage in litigation as a form of political expression and political a ...
'' (1978)


References

{{reflist Abuse of the legal system Informal legal terminology Legal ethics Personal injury