True. Google looks for description also inside the text, non only reading meta tag. It depends on the search query.
But are you sure that Google consider these twoo pages as duplicate content?
http://www.portlandpersonalinjuryaccidentlawyer.com/blog/page/16
http://www.portlandpersonalinjuryaccidentlawyer.com/blog/page/17
I'm not quite sure.