Bugg Smasher (and to those others of you who seem a little confused about the lawyers' role in all this): it works like this.
You are a lawyer. A client walks into your office and tells you he wants to bring a claim against an airline because he has suffered DVT. You examine the merits of his claim and evaluate the chances of success. Then you tell the client. At that point, he decides whether he wants to continue or not.
There seems to be a perception out there that this sort of litigation is "driven" by the lawyers - of course it's not. As a lawyer, you're simply approached by a client and asked to argue a case for him. So you do. The claimants in this matter will have been advised honestly by their lawyers about their chances of success. Bugg Smasher seems to be under the impression that it's the lawyers who decide whether the case goes ahead or not. Of course it's not.
(Bugg Smasher, I concede that things may be a little different in the States, where, as I understand it, "no win, no fee" litigation is more common. That's not the case here - it happens, but relatively rarely and only in certain cases, covered by strict guidelines).