1.   The lawyer is paid only if he wins.

2.   An exception, he notes, is if you pay a lawyer to help you prepare your taxes.

3.   And the Minnesota lawyers also got paid by Blue Cross of Minnesota at their hourly rate.

4.   And the punch line is, taxpayers could end up paying every lawyer in all those courtrooms.

5.   Another key difference between the Texas and Minnesota agreements is how the outside lawyers who assisted the states in the tobacco lawsuits will be paid.

6.   As it stands now, the lawyers are being paid by the tobacco industry.

7.   As long as they have money to pay lawyers -- as opposed to money to pay ballplayers -- why not keep appealing?

8.   But despite the contract, how much the lawyers will be paid, and when it will happen, is still in question.

9.   But defense lawyers are paid to raise doubts.

10.   Court-appointed capital defense lawyers here are paid so little that many lawyers refuse the work.