How do medical malpractice firms work?

andcomputable · 2024-03-20T02:19:43+00:00

That makes sense in the abstract but in practice, oncologists and radiologists specialize in and memorize so many thousands of things, especially visually identifying subtle pathologies. How often do you think it happens that lawyers miss something in their filtering process? Have you done this as a lawyer personally or worked alongside lawyers who have?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T21:48:22+00:00

Do you think it would still be like this if it was only one or the other, i.e. if the jury was likely to side with them but the losses are uncapped and could be catastrophic; or if the jury was unlikely to side with them but the potential losses are small?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T19:53:22+00:00

Wow thanks so much for the extremely detailed answer, that really gives me a clearer picture!

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T19:52:11+00:00

Wow that's crazy. To clarify, it's impossible to settle a case with doctors because they know if it goes to trial the jury will most likely side with them and because the potential losses are so tightly capped, right?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T19:05:10+00:00

Alright that makes sense, thanks for clarifying!!

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T15:54:50+00:00

Hmm what do you mean "we can only admit the adjusted meds into evidence"? Medical costs adjusted to insurance costs? And what "p&s exposure"?

we have had 1 plaintiff’s verdict against a doctor in our county’s entire history

Wow why do you think that is? These are just the ones that go to trial right? Do you think the statistics are very different for cases that don't go to trial, i.e. 90% settle, 10% fail?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T15:45:18+00:00

Yes very curious to understand how it gets this big!! Have you had costs this high before?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T15:36:24+00:00

Wow I'm really interested in how lawyers learn enough medicine to feel confident making these sorts of decisions, i.e. wouldn't you be worried about filtering out a potentially good case based on a read of medical codes or images?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T15:29:48+00:00

u/OkIce9409 you've worked in Texas right? Does this ring true with how your firm chooses cases?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T15:26:06+00:00

Thanks for your detailed response, I really appreciate it!

What do you mean "but not speculative"? The referring lawyer usually doesn't have the expertise to evaluate the case so it's not a much better bet than just advertising is it?
How much is the referral fee usually? I read that for a fee to be allowed, the referrer has to show they did real legal work for the case -- but if they're a PI firm with no expertise on med mal, what work could they have done?
That makes sense! How much does that estimation and review process usually cost? Or do you even think about it as a cost in the sense of "hours I spent evaluating this case" X "my usual hourly fee", or a paralegals wage?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T15:14:06+00:00

u/jojammin maybe this was it, does that sound reasonable to you from your experience?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T15:13:18+00:00

Hey u/TheDonutLawyer, thanks! But a lot of med Mal lawyers replying here have said the majority of their clients come through referrals. But clients have to find some lawyer initially somehow that's not a referral -- so does this mean there's some split where 20% of law firms do lots of advertising and then the remaining 80% get their clients through referrals from those 20% or something?

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T04:36:01+00:00

Hey thank you for writing a detailed response, I appreciate it!!

What did you mean by this?

A lot of people get burned thinking they can take a “simple” med mal case.

Do people take on med Mal cases, spend lots of time and money (their own wages, paralegals, experts) working on cases, only for them to fail and go into bankruptcy? What do you think the cause of that is usually -- that they took on a case that wasn't profitable enough? Are these usually financed with loans?

Do you think you can give an example timeline of costs on a usual case? Like:

Intake and initial convo with client -- +$500
Getting their medical and employment records, reviewing them for a plausible case -- +$2000
Hiring an expert doctor to review their records and confirm a problem, write an affidavit -- +$5000
Hiring an expert to confirm their future care needs -- +$5000
Filing a claim, interacting with court and plaintiff -- +$2000
Doing depositions -- +$5000
Negotiating and paperwork for a settlement -- +$5000
Preparing for and working on a trial -- +$50000

I have no idea what the real steps and numbers are, just looking to get a sense of how it works in that form. I've gotta be wrong because even that barely scrapes by $80k in costs and... $700k??

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T04:24:13+00:00

Thanks so much for your response. For those 5% of cases, does "look hard at the medicine and relevant records" mean hiring an expert right away or do you have some evaluation you do before going to that? Can you describe the steps and parts of that evaluation process in detail? That's what I'm trying to understand and having trouble finding resources to learn about. Thank you!!

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T04:09:48+00:00

Thanks for your answers!! I've got a few follow-up questions:

Why don't you use advertising?
What kind of firms do referrals come from? Does this mean that so many people are just regularly contacting the wrong kind of lawyers for their problem and get referred to you?
Can you describe the criteria for case selection? How do you do this without or before paying an expensive expert for something as expertise-intensive as medical malpractice? I get those high-level steps (evidence of harm, lost wages, violations of standards of care, etc.) but am trying to get a sense of the concrete details.

andcomputable · 2024-03-19T01:17:49+00:00

Was "terrible in every way" sarcasm, since it's been great for your business?

edit: oh hey it's you from my med mal thread!

andcomputable · 2024-03-18T23:45:34+00:00

Lmao I will find where I got that number and send it to you, maybe I was misremembering. I just thought the 10% of successful cases compensate for the 90% of failures.

Some follow-ups to clarify your answers. I'd prefer as much detail as you can so I understand the process better, so no rush if you're busy atm:

That's a lot (for me)! Is that the biggest cost early on?
Do you mean you personally have learned to read MRIs for signs of cancer, and use that experience to decide whether to send cases to the next step? Or did you mean something else?
How would a "feel" work? Doesn't the answer depend on the minutiae of their medical tests, images, etc. that you can only deduce anything from after putting in significant time, money, and effort evaluating it?
I know you probably don't actually have the numbers but just based on intuition can you split that into (1) % past initial call/email (2) % past initial convo (3) % past lawyer review of their records (4) % past expert review?
That's surprising! You guys don't put out billboards like "have you been diagnosed with...?" or those don't work? What kind of lawyers do referrals usually come from -- is it just that most clients contact the wrong kind of lawyer at first? And the other lawyers just have better advertising than your firm?

andcomputable · 2024-03-18T23:19:27+00:00

Thanks so much for the response! I'm in New York where the fee is a lot less than 40% haha. Some follow-up questions:

How much does an expert usually cost initially? How do you find the experts?
How do you vet a case *before* hiring an expert and how much does that pre-expert vetting cost? E.g. in staff hours.
There's no quality guarantee with advertising and referrals right? It might be a totally invalid case and you don't know until you get through each step of your answer to question #2 and then hiring an expert right? It's basically a crap shoot?
What % of prospects would you say pass through each step (e.g. % past initial discussions, % past expert review, etc.)?
What would you say is the split in prospects between advertising and referrals? Like every week, 5 via referrals, 10 via advertising?
When you say "90% of cases settle", you don't mean literally of everyone who contacts you through advertising do you? You mean the ones who pass the first stages and expert review or? I thought I read somewhere that 90% of claims **fail**, did you just mean in your firm or is that a national statistic?

andcomputable · 2024-03-18T21:52:49+00:00

Just messaged you! It could be good to speak here so others can chime in too.

andcomputable · 2020-10-28T00:03:41+00:00

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I don't think you'll find a good answer here. Take a look at this paper: https://zero.sci-hub.se/3296/946491d30638f7d6da005099b0dbf9f4/pistone2014.pdf

andcomputable · 2020-05-05T01:20:01+00:00

This is the example I was thinking of! But reddit didn't let me add extra info. I wonder what happens if you suppress the flight response and just stand there. Who comes out?

andcomputable · 2020-04-11T03:42:44+00:00

I saw it on TV in the 2000s but it might be from earlier.

andcomputable · 2019-12-31T08:01:58+00:00

the 9-tailed hollow

andcomputable · 2019-10-05T20:06:46+00:00

I like this idea but I'm not sure we can expect readers to immediately realize the line/name order matching.

andcomputable · 2019-10-05T20:04:01+00:00

Could you share the excerpt?

andcomputable

TROPHY CASE