Okay, risking the collective disdain of Werekoala, Spike, and Blue Devil I'm going to admit that I'm a lawyer just for purposes of adding a few minor details to the debate. You are right that both ATLA and Overlawyer have agendas in their respective reporting. ATLA is a club of trial lawyers, the vast majority of which are plaintiff lawyers, and Overlawyer is obviously on the tort reform side (as am I actually). Still, the facts they presented were taken from court documents and were generally accurate.
The problem in these lawsuits IMO is that juries look at a sympathetic and badly injured older woman and then figure that McDonald's is a big evil corporation that can afford to give her money. The decision shouldn't have been who has the most money, it should have been who was negligent. Personally, having read the briefs on this case I think that McDonald's was only slightly negligent at best but unfortunately even 1% negligence will get you an award under New Mexico law. Fortunately in this case at least the jury did acknowledge that she was partially at fault (20%) and the court further reduced the damages awarded on post trial motion. All in all, she ended up with $640,000, of which half went to attorneys fees and costs.
The pants case on the other hand is ludicrous. This clown isn't going to get emotional damages on a simple property damage claim and he is perverting the whole intent of the consumer protection laws and IMO should be sanctioned by the bar for filing a frivilous claim.
As for Werekoala's contempt for all lawyers, please keep in mind that there are probably only the same percentage of fucktards in the legal profession as in other lines of work, the only difference is that the bad lawyers can do more damage and unfortunately the greedy idiots get more press. To be fair I know many good lawyers who would never file a frivilous claim and have turned down such cases. Sadly, I've defended against cases that are worse than both of these.
Sorry for interrupting the kilt and schoolgirl chat for a boring legal monologue, please continue.