“Dear Mr. Gordon,” the letter begins. “I am writing to you because you may be entitled to money damages as a result of an accident that occurred on February 25, 2007 in which you were injured and admitted to Memorial Hermann Hospital.”

So, I “may be entitled to money damages”, eh? If that isn’t enough to arouse my latent greed, the second paragraph is more explicit.

“I can help you prosecute your potential claim and recover money damages,” the letter continues.

Oh. So now I have a “potential claim.”

The next sentence is underlined, in case I have any fears about the legal fees involved in bringing a lawsuit: “There is no fee unless you recover money.”

Gosh, I have nothing to lose by suing, do I? Can’t beat that.

The considerate lawyer who wrote this letter then invites me to call him “as soon as possible” to discuss my potential claim. He assures me that when I call, I will not be rudely shunted off to a secretary or a paralegal, “You will talk to me, an attorney, at no charge to you.”

The same letter appears on the reverse side of the page –- in Spanish. (Hey, this is Houston. Ambulance chasers can’t afford to overlook potential clients who don’t speak English, or who may not yet have their citizenship papers.)

The letter, of course, does not tell me that the lawyer’s cut of my “potential claim” could well be as high as 40 percent of the amount recovered. Not to mention the litigation expenses involved, which are certain to be considerable in a case of this kind.

My first impulse on reading this advertisement (the word finally appears at the bottom of the page) was to tear it up –- and then wash my hands. But I decided to do a little pro bono work of my own by posting it on the Internet.

As regular readers of this blog know, I was indeed involved in a serious accident on February 25 when I was thrown from my bicycle while going 18 miles and hour. Happily, I was wearing a helmet and escaped serious injury, although I was rushed to the nearest hospital emergency room for first aid and a CAT scan.

I was the only party involved in the accident. So, unless I want to sue the city of Houston for negligently putting a crack in the road, directly in the path of my bike, I don’t have a claim. What I find particularly disgusting about this letter is that the law firm involved is simply trawling for clients. They’ve obtained access to hospital records in bulk, and are dangling the prospect of hefty settlements in front of accident victims indiscriminately, in the hope that some of these victims will decide to give them a call. That’s how I was caught in their net.

I can’t simply dismiss this incident, because it is a symptom of a much larger problem that is not only clogging our legal system with spurious lawsuits, but is imposing substantial costs on society as a whole.

The expense of all this frenzied litigation is, ultimately, borne by consumers in the form of higher prices. Some experts on the subject go so far as to speak of a “tort tax” on Americans that amounts to over $3500 a year for a family of four.

Trial lawyers claim that this figure is exaggerated, but they also know that the majority of their fellow-citizens regard them as shysters. That is one reason why the Association of Trial Lawyers of America voted last year to rename itself “The American Association for Justice.”

That particular exercise in semantics reminds me of an episode from Al Capp’s comic strip, Li’l Abner, when the citizens of Dogpatch voted to change the name of the skunk works to the perfume factory.

I, for one, am convinced that the stench emanating from our courtrooms today will not be lifted until this country adopts the “loser pays” rule that is currently in force in much of the developed world.

“Loser pays” means that the losing party in a civil case pays the winner’s legal expenses in addition to his own. If there were such a penalty attached to bringing frivolous legal actions, the tort tax would be repealed overnight.

And law firms like the one that sent me the letter I have just quoted would go out of business very nearly as fast. Good riddance!