Bare Doctor Blog: Lubell & Rosen Law Firm

There are three types of plaintiffs’ firms. To know them is to know your adversaries.

The “Mill”

This type of firm hawks its services through two-page color advertisements in the phone book or on billboards and bus ads. Like automobile manufacturers, its profits are tied to steady, high-volume production and efficiency. Accordingly, it must generate a large number of small—to medium-sized malpractice and negligence cases that are relatively easy to handle. Lawsuits that become overly complicated or appear unprofitable are discarded.

The “Boutique”

This type of firm is highly selective. Its focus is on quality, not quantity. It calculates its odds of winning a lawsuit carefully, concentrating on a few big cases, spending its time wisely, and preparing intensively and meticulously. Because of its top-notch reputation, it receives most of its cases through attorney referrals. The firm assumes only risks that offer the possibility of big rewards.

The “Crazies” (No, these aren’t all attorneys!)

This type of firm has little or no business and doesn’t care about making money. Its attorneys are relatives of the injured patient and/or are lawyers with their own agendas. They simply have it out for you.

Asset-protection strategies work well when dealing with mills and boutiques: Their firms’ motivations are evident, and they will deal logically with the inherent strengths and weaknesses of medical malpractice cases. Crazies, however, will try to make your life as difficult as possible, if only because they can. When dealing with them, it’s critical that you structure your asset plan to provide maximum protection, even if you lose in court.

The easiest way to understand the business strategy of a plaintiff’s attorney is to liken it to a stock portfolio.

A typical portfolio contains several kinds of stocks—some are good performers, and some are not. To make a healthy profit, the attorney must keep the cash cows, cut losses on weak holdings, and try not to throw good money after bad. Ditto for the attorney’s portfolio of cases—some are possible winners, and some are probable losers. But unlike publicly traded stock that can be sold easily on the open market, a judgment awarded after trial is hardly liquid. Rather, a judgment is simply a piece of paper noting a judicially recognized debt that is subject to execution and garnishment. Turning that paper into cash is not easy and is more art than science. Accordingly, just as you should cut your losses in the stock market, attorneys must cut their potential losses by avoiding unprofitable cases. They must instead spend their time and effort on cases wherein collectibility is assured (such as in insurance-covered claims). Therefore, one of the best and most basic strategies for protecting your assets is to be perceived as a loser in a plaintiff attorney’s eyes. In other words, you want to appear to be judgment-proof or, at least, judgment-resistant.

But even if you don’t appear as such, plaintiff attorneys might still see you as a loser. Here’s why: In Florida, a judgment is valid for twenty years. That’s because collecting upon it can be very difficult and time-consuming. Medical malpractice attorneys who win their cases ultimately become collections attorneys in search of assets. The collections process can be a real grind, even sleazy, however—quite a departure from the pin-striped world most plaintiff attorneys inhabit. Searching for bank accounts, making harassing phone calls, sending innumerable letters, repossessing cars—all these efforts take time. Time, of course, is money. The longer the collection process drags out, the more money spent and the less money available to litigate other (more lucrative) cases. And so, unless attorneys add to their practices a collections department, they are uninterested in hard-to-collect cases, like those involving bare doctors.