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002 What is Medical Malpractice?

002 What is Medical Malpractice?

Lawyers in the House with Montlick

Attorneys in Podcast: Alan Saltzman, Esq.

What is medical malpractice? What does it take to prove a medical malpractice case? It’s more complex than you think.

Veronica talks to two heavy hitters on the Montlick team – managing attorney Alan Saltzman and retired Montlick managing attorney and former nurse Kathy Opperman about how the medical world intersects with the law.

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The purpose of this show is to provide general information about the law. Our guests will not provide any individualized legal advice. If you have a personal situation and need legal advice, contact us for your free legal consultation with a Montlick attorney.

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00:04	ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Wish you had a lawyer in the family? Now, you do. Here’s your host, Veronica Waters.
00:28	VERONICA: Welcome. Welcome to Lawyers in the House on WSB. I am your host, Veronica Waters. And who among us has not wished at some point in our lives that we had somebody we could turn to with a question about something legal? Everybody has said, “I wish I could ask a lawyer this. Why didn’t J.R. go to law school? I wish I had a lawyer in the family.” Well, guess what? Now you do.
00:58	You’ve got more than one lawyer in the family. You’ve got the fabulous attorneys at Montlick who are going to be with us here on WSB each and every week, answering your questions and peeling back the curtain on all things legal. We’re going to talk about personal injury. We’re going to talk about everything that that entails. And although we’re going to have different perspectives and different attorneys here all the time, one thing is going to be the same, and that is that your questions are going to be answered. Make sure you tune us in.
01:27	Drop us a line at [email protected]. We want to hear your questions. We got you. So, I talked about the fabulous attorneys at Montlick, and here in the house with us today, we’ve got Kathy Opperman, who is one of the managing attorneys at Montlick and has been in the law business for many decades. 33, 35 years, Kathy? KATHY: Yes, I’m afraid so.
01:57	VERONICA: Lover of murder mysteries? KATHY: Yes. VERONICA: And shrimp on the barbie? Spent some time practicing in Australia? We’re going to get to know a little bit about you and your amazing background, which led you to law. And Alan Saltzman, who has been with Montlick almost since the beginning of the firm, since the firm was just a toddler itself. Right? ALAN: Yes. Good morning. 35 years. VERONICA: 35 years at Montlick. And how many years total practicing, Alan? ALAN: I think about 38 years.
02:27	VERONICA: 38 years. And a crusader in the courts for everybody who needs him. So, I’m so glad. Alan and Kathy, thanks for being in the house. KATHY: Thanks for having us. ALAN: Happy to be here. VERONICA: We have right here in front of me, two folks who have the greater part of a century’s worth of legal knowledge and experience between them. We also have someone who has a medical background.
02:55	Kathy? Give us a little bit about, I got to know how you got to Montlick and how you started in this field. KATHY: Well, I was a nurse for about ten years, loved nursing, and after about ten years or so, I realized that due to some physical reasons and also being worn out, it was time to maybe think about something else. And personal injury seemed to fit medical malpractice because of my nursing background. And then, as life would have it, being in New York, all of a sudden I meet somebody, and I end up moving to Australia for five years, where I become a solicitor.
03:30	And happily, I did not have to be a barrister wearing a wig. Then, when I came back to the States, it was in Georgia, and luck would have it, I interviewed at Montlick and said yes, and been there ever since. VERONICA: That’s amazing. That’s an indication, I think, of how at home you felt. KATHY: Absolutely. VERONICA: It really is a family. Everything. It’s really like a family. Alan, talk about how you got to the family of Montlick.
03:58	ALAN: Well, I always wanted to be a lawyer when I was a child, it was always interesting to me, but I got lucky enough to grow up at a time that was really exciting in the 1970s, and a lot of things were going on. I used to go to whoever it was that was speaking. I would see something on a telephone pole, and I’d go there to hear them speak. And I saw great speakers such as Angela Davis, Ralph Nader, Jane Fonda.
04:28	And it wasn’t political back then. What particularly impressed me was Ralph Nader, because I remembered as a child when we didn’t have seatbelts I don’t want to date myself, but it’s true. We didn’t have seat belts. And when seat belts came out, which cost $17 to manufacture, probably about $9.85 in those days, I had one of those dads that said, “I don’t want to use this. This thing is screaming at me. Take me to the guy that will pull the plug on the seatbelt.” And I said, “Dad, that will save lives!”
04:57	And I heard Ralph Nader speak, and when I heard him speak, he talked about things that resonated with me. I remembered playing as a child in an old car with a metal dashboard and hitting my head. Trial lawyers fought to get plastic into your dashboard, soft cushions into your dashboard, seat belts so that you can be safe. And then trial lawyers fought to get shoulder harnesses in the car, which is a big deal. And of course, my father would then say, “But what if the car turns upside down?
05:27	I’m going to hang myself on the shoulder harness.” Well, the shoulder harnesses have saved lives, and people don’t realize it, but trial lawyers have worked hard with corporations to get them to invoke safety standards. That is why less people die than they used to in automobile accidents. VERONICA: I said that you were a crusader in court. I knew that this was the truth, because when you speak, there’s so much passion.
05:57	Alan, ever since I’ve met you, I’ve seen this in you, and it really resonates. And I know it’s really something that you eat, breathe, and sleep the law. ALAN: Yes. VERONICA: Really, and I hope we get to talk about a little personal thing that actually led you to personal injury. I think that would be fun to talk about if we get a chance. This is Lawyers in the House on WSB and with Kathy and Alan, who are obviously talking about things that can really hurt people.
06:24	Today’s show, we’re going to focus on medical malpractice, which I think all of us have sort of heard of, but maybe don’t exactly know what it is. This is the intersection of law and medicine where these two things meet. So, let’s talk a little bit about it. Alan, what exactly is medical malpractice? ALAN: Medical malpractice is when a doctor or medical professional breaches a standard of care that is owed to the patient and something very bad happens.
06:54	Most doctors, nearly all doctors, are well intentioned. They’re our heroes. They fight for us every day. They’re in the trenches, especially today with what we’ve seen with COVID. But accidents do happen, mistakes do happen. And when they happen and the standard of care is breached, and another doctor and this is important in Georgia, another doctor has to sign an affidavit stating that medical malpractice has occurred before you can even bring a medical malpractice case. So, there’s a high standard, and there should be.
07:23	VERONICA: So, it’s different than just maybe a bad result that you could get? ALAN: Yes. KATHY: Sure, I mean, it’s a variety of ways that it can occur. It could be failure to treat, it could be delayed treatment, it could be prescription incorrect for your condition, a surgical procedure that goes wrong. And of course, childbirth injuries are always out there, so there’s a variety of ways it can happen.
07:52	VERONICA: Have you seen a case that was really striking, Kathy, one that maybe has stuck with you over the years? KATHY: Yeah, a couple. One young woman that stays with me. She was pregnant with her first child. She was about 20. And she did not have an excellent prenatal care, but she did have visits with the local clinics. And when she went into labor, it became apparent that they couldn’t stop the bleeding after baby was born.
08:24	And it ends up that they couldn’t save her. And she died at 20 years old. And the reason was that no one noticed that she had a particular tumor close to the uterus. And that when the pressure of the childbirth began, the tumor began to massively bleed. And so, they couldn’t do anything fast enough or get her to an intensive care close in a city or something where they could save her.
08:54	So, she passed away and the baby had to live and grow up with her grandmother, which was lucky in that sense. So, that’s always stayed with me. VERONICA: So, that’s a case where, what? Somebody should have seen . . . KATHY: They should have been able to diagnose that tumor. In fact, it was a kind of tumor that had obvious symptoms. One of the glaring symptoms is that one of her breasts was larger than the other, clearly.
09:24	And that was a major, that was like the hallmark symptom of this particular type of tumor. VERONICA: So, when you step into a case like that, how do you step in and help? What’s the result? KATHY: Well, mostly, of course, you start off helping as much as you can, the grieving family. And to start any case, you have to get all of the medical records in and notify the hospital and the doctors that you’re probably going to make a claim.
09:54	And then you review all the medical records. And if, as an attorney, you feel like there’s something there, we contact the appropriate expert. So here we would have an OB-GYN expert review the records and prepare an affidavit and then proceed if there’s not going to be a settlement, to file a lawsuit. And in most situations, unfortunately, with medical malpractice, you do have to file a lawsuit in order to get a recovery. I believe it is still the case, Alan, that the insurance policies must have the doctor’s permission to settle, which is unlike any other kind of policy.
10:30	And sometimes you have a doctor who just is not willing to say, “I made a mistake,” or, “Yes, it was my fault,” or “I don’t want that on my record,” and it ends up in probably more litigation than you need sometimes. VERONICA: Alan, I would wonder how many of these cases actually settle versus going to trial. Kathy talked about how often folks might just want to fight this. ALAN: Well, you would be surprised. That’s a good question. How many cases actually have to go to trial? They’re not the type of cases that usually will settle.
10:59	They’re fought hard. People don’t want to say that they committed malpractice. People don’t want that on their record. Insurance companies defend them with capable lawyers. And people need capable lawyers, too, when they have a medical malpractice case. We get a lot of calls where they’re just bad outcomes and bad outcomes happen. That’s why they call medicine the “practice” of medicine. You can go in for a simple procedure and something bad can happen.
11:31	That’s why we all sign waivers, right? So, it’s really important to know that we go through hundreds and hundreds of calls to decide whether or not somebody has a medical malpractice case. And we take the case when we think the science will bear out. And even when we think the science will bear out, sometimes it does not. Right, Kathy? KATHY: Yeah. It becomes a battle of the experts. And insurance companies generally have more money than the poor plaintiff, so it gets very expensive.
11:59	VERONICA: I covered a trial once that talked about a botched circumcision, and that was a pretty hard-fought trial here in metro Atlanta, and it went on for a couple of weeks. And you’re right, there was a lot of testimony, a lot of depositions, a lot of expert testimony, including a guy who came in to talk about the proper way to do a bris. There’s so much intricate knowledge in all of these, and it is, I’m sure, hard when you have somebody who’s saying, “Anybody else could have made this decision, and it’s not necessarily a mistake.” And then the doctor can’t even say, “I’m sorry.” Right?
12:35	KATHY: Well, yeah, not at that point. VERONICA: Yeah, because that’s like an admission of guilt. I don’t know if it works like that. KATHY: Well, they’re encouraging, I think the AMA is encouraging doctors more and more to say, “Look, this didn’t go the way I planned. This is what we’re going to do.” And, I feel like most people appreciate that. Oftentimes it’s when the doctor isn’t honest about what happened that patients get angry or the families get angry, and that’s when they contact us.
13:03	VERONICA: I am really curious to know whether or not there is some sort of guideline that maybe we should follow when it comes to if we have a bad outcome, if we have a question about whether or not we have a medical malpractice case, or the questions I need to ask myself. Can I tell? if somebody wanted to know, though, not try to do their own PI work.
13:32	Not personal injury work, but private investigation work. How can they get in touch with one of you two, if they wanted to just run a question by you? ALAN: Well, it’s as easy as calling 1-800-LAW-NEED, and you will speak to a lawyer that day who will look at the facts of your case and not be able to determine that day whether you have an actual medical malpractice case. But we’ll be able to tell you this is something that we may be able to look into. VERONICA: Fantastic.
14:00	This is Lawyers in the House on WSB. You are in the house. This is Lawyers in the House on WSB with the fabulous attorneys at Montlick, here with Kathy Opperman and Alan Saltzman, two folks I am really happy to be sitting down and getting to know and picking their brains about all things medical malpractice.
14:36	I was asking just a little while ago about whether there’s some guideline that I need to know or is there some sort of ABC thing that I can have in front of me that tells me, do I have a medical malpractice case? How do I know? Is there a way for me to know? Alan? ALAN: Well, if a very bad thing happens to you or somebody you love, God forbid it’s a death or an illness or something that alters somebody’s life forever, that’s the kind of a case that spells generally a medical malpractice case.
15:12	And you will not know unless you contact a lawyer. And at our firm, we’re so lucky, I’m so lucky to be able to run medical malpractice cases by Kathy with her nursing background. And we have another nursing attorney that’s been with us for many, many years, Lynn Walker. Fantastic. Yes. And they are so helpful in evaluating initial medical malpractice situations. VERONICA: And, Kathy, I know that if you don’t mind talking, you mentioned that there was like this intersection of law and medicine in sort of your own life. There was some sort of natural feeling for you to get there.
15:44	KATHY: Yeah, well, there’s been a few, because I think all of us say the older we get, the more interaction we have with the medical community. But I did have a family member who was, thank goodness, a real advocate for herself when she knew something was wrong one night at home after work. She went to her local emergency room with her husband and they lived kind of in the outskirts of a certain state, and she knew something was wrong and was told three times when she went back that there was nothing wrong with her.
16:14	And she was kind of made to feel it was in her head. And luckily, the third time, a new doctor came on in the morning shift and realized that my family member had had a stroke and she was only in her forties. And everybody kind of poo pooed that it couldn’t happen to a woman in her forties. And luckily, at that point, they quickly got her to an expert neurologist and pretty much she’s all’s well that ends well.
16:41	But she had to be, I guess, the most important thing on any of these cases, you must be an advocate for yourself. Do not be afraid to ask questions. If you’re not sure something is right, then you ask about it. If you went into surgery and you feel your need that was supposed to be replaced, feels worse than it did before, for weeks and weeks, follow up, get a second opinion. It could be that it’s just one of those things. It could be that it was done incorrectly. VERONICA: We don’t know unless we ask.
17:09	And Alan, you and I have talked about the importance of advocating, advocating for your care. I also want to talk to you a little bit about maybe medical treatment. So, let’s delve into that in just a few minutes and talk about the importance of medical treatment. One more time, Kathy, if somebody wants to holler at you about a case, how do they contact you? KATHY: 1-800-LAW-NEED. VERONICA: If you’re lucky enough to get Kathy, you’ve got a nurse and a lawyer all in one. It’s like two for the price of one.
17:39	All right, thank you so much. We are going to be back with Lawyers in the House on WSB. I am your host, Veronica Waters. Stay with us. Welcome back to Lawyers in the House on WSB. I’m your host, Veronica Waters, and this is some fabulous legal talk that we’re having here.
18:12	Delving into personal injury law and medical malpractice, learning about what it is. If you missed the first half hour, it is chock full of information. So, make sure you check us out online at WSBradio.com or look for Lawyers in the House wherever you find the hottest podcasts because we are there. I’m in the house today with Alan Saltzman and Kathy Opperman, some of the best and brightest and the heaviest of the heavy hitters at Montlick Law.
18:41	So, thanks again for being here and chatting with us in the house today. You guys, I have a little bit of a confession to make. Please don’t look so shocked, Kathy. So, I have been rear-ended a couple of times and no matter what I was feeling after that, I did not actually go to the doctor.
19:11	I heard that, Kathy. So, I think maybe my confession could serve some other folks. We don’t be like Veronica. Right.? I feel like Alan wants to take me aside and chastise me for real. I just let whatever I was feeling sort of go away and I just assumed that the pain I had would pass. Right. But that’s obviously, Kathy and Alan, not what you would recommend.
19:40	Is it really important to get some medical treatment? ALAN: It’s extremely important. First and foremost, we’re injury attorneys. If you’re not hurt, you probably don’t need medical treatment. But when you get involved in a serious auto accident, it can even be a fender bender. We have seen people with slight builds, even sixteen-year-old women have an automobile accident and there’s not much property damage to either car. And we find out that they have a broken neck and it’s happened.
20:10	It doesn’t happen often, but when it does happen, people try to tough it out. And if you don’t see a doctor within a week of the automobile accident, it’s very hard to represent somebody because the insurance company is going to think that you weren’t hurt because you didn’t bring it up in the accident or at the accident scene. They didn’t put it in the police report, and they’re going to wonder why you have a broken neck. Maybe you did something and you broke your neck. If you’re not hurt, then you don’t need a personal injury attorney.
20:39	But if you have a very bad accident, you don’t know what’s going to happen to you hours or days later. You should get checked out. Your seat belt hurts, you may hit the cab of your truck with the side of your head, and you don’t even realize how hurt you were until you get home. So, please, if you are in a bad accident or even in a smaller accident and you feel like you are hurt, get checked out and find out for sure. Don’t take any chances with your health.
21:09	VERONICA: Just go. ALAN: Just go and get checked out. Particularly in the accidents that are very serious accidents, lots of property damage. Your body really got thrown around that automobile. I would get checked out. And I think it’s the important thing that everybody should do in that situation. VERONICA: Yeah. Your adrenaline could be flying. Right. You’re not necessarily feeling anything. In my case, I was like, I got to get to work. I got to go. ALAN: Absolutely. I’ve talked to people that in the heat of the moment, they’re more worried about their car than they are they’re broken leg.
21:42	So, it’s really important to get checked out. VERONICA: So, I’m on the side of the road, or I’m on the phone with my insurance company. Should I be telling them each and every thing that I can remember? What do I say to the insurance company or the folks on the scene when that happens? KATHY: I would just tell my insurance company that an accident happened and you’re reporting it right now. I wouldn’t give them too many details right off the bat, only because you never know how they’ll interpret it. VERONICA: Really? So, there are things I should and shouldn’t say.
22:08	KATHY: I just give them the basics, what the cars are, that you’re either rear-ended or side-swiped, and that the police are here and I’m reporting it under terms of my policy. And you can wait a day on that also. VERONICA: So, is it that maybe the insurance company might use my words against me? Well, that was quite the laugh. KATHY: I mean, even though you’re paying premiums. Look, insurance companies are businesses.
22:38	They don’t want to pay out. So, if there’s something that they think you did wrong, they’re going to say, well, I don’t know if we’re going to pay you for that, because you should have done X, Y, and Z. So, the best thing to do is if you think you need to have a claim, you contact a lawyer, and then the lawyer will handle working with and speaking to the adjusters. VERONICA: Alan, you have had an instance with something called an eggshell plaintiff. Right? I didn’t know this, actually, this phrase until like, a week ago.
23:09	Right. But I wanted to ask you about it. What’s an eggshell plaintiff? ALAN: An eggshell plaintiff simply is somebody that is predisposed to injury. And we take the plaintiff as we find him. A plaintiff is a person that is going to be filing a case in court. And I once represented a gentleman who was involved in a very serious automobile accident. Before that, he was perfectly healthy. His car was a mess. The inside of the car was a mess.
23:37	There was even a bent steering wheel in the car, and property damage was very high. And he walked away miraculously from that accident, and everything seemed to be fine. And he called me three or four days after the accident, and he said he was having double vision. He wasn’t complaining of the typical neck or back or leg pain that we hear. He was experiencing double vision. And the double vision got worse.
24:01	And then he started to have tremors, and then he started to have muscle weakness, and he went to get treated and eventually wound up with a neurologist who said, “This man has MS,” — multiple sclerosis, which is a very serious systemic disease. And the neurologist took the position that this was dormant multiple sclerosis. It may not have occurred for many years were it not for this very bad shock to his spine in the automobile accident.
24:31	And when we took this case, I thought we were on new ground. I had never certainly seen a case like this. Yes. And the insurance company said, well, we’re not for multiple sclerosis. We’re responsible for the damage to the car. Multiple sclerosis is something that you get because you’re predisposed to it. He was predisposed to injury. He was an eggshell plaintiff. And it was a hard fight, but there was no other explanation.
25:00	VERONICA: So, it was a successful fight? ALAN: It was a successful fight. Yes, it was. VERONICA: How much do you know to, I don’t know, ask for? I don’t know if it’s like a negotiation when you’re getting a salary. Like you said, a lot of these cases settled, but a lot more go to trial. But when you are talking numbers. How do you know what to ask for? What to accept? ALAN: Well, you really don’t know until the end of the case when all of the medical bills are in.
25:29	When you have all of the injuries documented by the physicians. When you know how it has affected and changed, altered a person’s life. Then you can sit down with the client and put a value on it. No attorney worth his or her salt should put a value on a personal injury case before it’s time to do that. And the time to do that is when you have all the information. That’s why it’s so important to be represented.
25:54	VERONICA: Kathy, when you talk about folks promising outcomes or whatever, I’m still trying to learn a little bit about this “running cases” thing and how folks promise you stuff in hospital when you’re getting can you just explain to me what is running cases all about? And these folks are coming to you with business cards or referrals, promising stuff. KATHY: Running cases essentially is unethical and illegal in Georgia.
26:29	Sometimes you’ll get phone calls making suggestions about hiring a particular attorney. And that’s a big red flag. Never do that because it’s kind of a set up. You don’t get a choice as to who your attorney is. And if they are already doing that and relying on something as unethical as runners, you don’t want that attorney for your representation VERONICA: You want someone who is in the family, like at Montlick. KATHY: Who puts you first?
26:59	VERONICA: Yeah, who puts you first. It really does feel like a family. And how do folks get in contact with one of you if they need to? ALAN: You just call 1-800-LAW-NEED. It’s that easy. VERONICA: It’s that easy. I’m curious, though. This might be a little inside baseball, but does Georgia law have some sort of is it harder to bring a medical malpractice case in Georgia? KATHY: There’s a little bit of tort reform. There are some caps on damages and things like that.
27:29	The more difficult case would be in an emergency setting because the Georgia Legislature has decided that it’s going to be a tougher standard for the plaintiff to meet in terms of negligence. It’s almost as if very little or nothing was done for you in an emergency setting. It’s a little hard to explain, but emergency room settings are difficult. But that does not mean you should not call an attorney.
27:58	In my opinion, emergency rooms should have the best care, and that’s why there are emergency rooms. However, the Georgia Legislature saw it somewhat differently. VERONICA: It’s got to be so expensive to bring a case. Do I need to come to you with a bunch of cash to hire these experts and whatnot? Or what if I might be thinking about insurance limitations or whatever on my own? ALAN: Absolutely not.
28:25	We take that risk, and all cases are handled on a contingency fee basis, and we don’t get paid unless we win the case. So, you don’t have to pay any money to utilize our services in that instance. KATHY: And if you’re in a situation like a medical malpractice case, the deal is, if we feel it’s worth it, we’ll pay for the experts and take it from there in the hopes of getting a good recovery for you. VERONICA: I’ve got a question.
28:53	I wonder if either of you have had an instance. I’m going to gamble that at least one of you, if not both of you, have had something where you said, “If only they had called me before X happened. Why didn’t you call me first?” ALAN: Well, I’ve had that over and over again. And it’s the same nightmare. Somebody’s in a bad automobile accident, and they don’t go to the doctor. They try to tough it out. They finally get worse and worse and worse.
29:24	Their neck hurts. When they finally land in the emergency room, they see a surgeon and all of a sudden they need back surgery because they miss something big like a herniated disk or a broken neck. And then they call me and ask me, “Can you help me?” And, it’s pretty hard to represent somebody if they haven’t seen a doctor within a week of the accident. Two weeks of the accident, even if they have a serious injury at that time, the good defense lawyers, and they’re very good lawyers that are defending insurance companies, they will try to insinuate and it could happen.
29:59	You could hurt yourself after the accident and they will say that this didn’t happen or you would have gone to the doctor during week one. And week two, you waited Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and you didn’t go until Friday because you, what? Had no pain? VERONICA: So, how bad could it be then? ALAN: Exactly. So that goes back to what we were saying. If you’re in an automobile accident, for God’s sakes, especially if it’s a serious accident, get checked out as soon as possible. VERONICA: I’ve got to ask you this, though.
30:27	Think about how folks are afraid to try to rack up medical bills because they don’t have insurance. ALAN: Absolutely. It’s an issue. And in today’s world, most of the bankruptcies or probably at least half of the bankruptcies out there are because people can’t pay their medical bills. So medical bills are a real problem. Thankfully, there are doctors who can treat people for these injuries on a lien basis, meaning you will not have to pay until the case is over. VERONICA: So, if I call you up, you can help me with that? ALAN: Yes, thankfully you won’t be responsible for medical bills until your case is over. Doctors will be able to treat you on a lien basis. VERONICA: All right, don’t fuss at me because I didn’t go to the doctor.
30:57	Fortunately, my injuries, the pain eventually went away, but I did have those bruises across the chest. We are going to be back with Lawyers in the House on WSB with Kathy Opperman and Alan Saltzman from Montlick. We are delving into some of everything that you need to know, pulling back the legal curtain for you. And coming up, what we give you every single week on Lawyers in the House, the Montlick closing argument. Stay with us. This is Lawyers in the House on WSB.
31:30	VERONICA: You are back in the house with Lawyers in the House. Your loveable host, Veronica Waters. And these amazing legal minds, Kathy Opperman and Alan Saltzman, kindly agreed to stop chastising me for not going to the doctor as I should have after those rear-enders.
31:59	We promise you each and every week that you’re going to get something really important to take with you to help your life or the lives of those that you know. So, without further ado, Montlick’s closing argument. ALAN: There are things you should look for when you hire a lawyer. Some of the best doctors and lawyers I’ve met don’t have very good bedside manners, and some of them don’t need very good bedside manners. As lawyers, we’re not doing brain surgery. We need to work together with our clients as a team.
32:27	People, by and large, hire a professional to get the job done. So, when you hire a lawyer, whether for a personal injury case or to write a will, to secure a copyright or a patent, even for something as minor as a bad traffic accident ticket, your lawyer should be somebody that you can talk to and understand. You should not have to supervise your lawyer. He or she should be somebody who listens to you very well, returns your calls, explains the facts about your case in a way that you can understand. At many injury firms, you don’t even speak with a lawyer when you call. Your case is signed and taken by an intake team.
32:57	At our firm, when you call 1-800-LAW-NEED, you speak to a real lawyer the first day, the first day that you call, and that lawyer will actually handle your case. You should be treated like family. What I mean by being treated like family is when I have a client, or any of our lawyers have a client, we want to treat you just like we would our brother and sister. That is to say, I would give the same advice to you as I would my own brother and sister. That’s what I mean by treating you as a family.
33:28	That’s how I have always treated my clients. That’s how we treat our clients. They deserve no less. So that is a goal that we try to achieve in every case. When you call 1-800-LAW-NEED. KATHY: Right. And I like to think of it as a relationship of trust and respect. And we trust you to tell us some things that are difficult to talk about. We respect you because you’re a client and because you’ve gone through trauma. And as long as we have a two-way street there, we are fine.
34:00	Please don’t ever hesitate to ask questions. And also, you should be able to schedule a time to meet with your lawyer. Thank you. VERONICA: Red flags, if you can’t get in touch with your lawyer. As you said, Alan trying to supervise somebody. And you can fire a lawyer, right? I don’t need to be stuck with a bad lawyer if I’ve got one. I’m just like, you’re out of here, buddy. KATHY: And, you know, sometimes people and lawyers aren’t a match. If you have that feeling, we get it.
34:28	But we do strive to make sure we answer all your questions and to make you feel like your case is being handled day to day, just the way it should be. VERONICA: Fantastic. It’s got to feel good when you have somebody that you know you can trust actually doing the legwork for you and helping you feel a little bit better along the way. How do folks get in touch with you, Alan, if they need to give you a ring? ALAN: It’s as simple as calling 1-800-LAW-NEED. KATHY: And don’t forget, we’re on all socials at Montlick Law or our website, montlick.com.
34:59	VERONICA: Fantastic. Thanks again, Alan and Kathy, for joining us. Shrimp on the barbie, mate. That’s my Australian accent. In honor of Kathy. This is Montlick and Lawyers in the House on WSB. I’m Veronica Waters.. Thanks so much for joining us and we’ll see you next time.

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