[HSF] Standard of care for lawyers

[Nasser F. Abou'Seada]

Very sad
I think Ed is representing - at least - a part of each one of us .... in his
opinion ..


On 4/9/08, Edward Bender <ebender001 at charter.net> wrote:
>
> This is disturbing but not that surprising.  Perhaps if lawyers were
> required to carry malpractice insurance that paid as well as medical
> malpractice insurance, there would be an incentive for one attorney to go
> after another.  As it stands, what's in it for a prospective plaintiff?
> Ethics are obviously not involved.
>
> I related your story to one of my cardiologists with whom I regularly
> trade
> legal nightmare stories.  He tells me of a surgeon who was in the middle
> of
> an aortic aneurysm repair who was mistakenly paged by an outside ER for a
> trauma case.  He wasn't on call and obviously could not deal with the
> acute
> trauma during his AAA repair in any case.  The correct surgeon was called,
> the patient was transferred but died in the ER of severe multiple trauma.
> The mistakenly called surgeon was named in the subsequent law suit, and
> the
> plaintiff's attorney refused to drop him from the case unless he was paid
> some money.  This went on for years, and he was eventually dropped.  The
> surgeon wanted to sue the attorney but could find no attorney that was
> willing to take the case.  The surgeon was so angered by this that he
> spent
> the next year learning how to file and pursue this himself, and he
> eventually won a huge settlement from the litigator's law firm.  The moral
> of the story is that litigators are scum sucking, bottom dwelling, garbage
> eating pig-f**kers, who have crawled out of the a**hole of hell - and I
> mean
> that with all due respect.
>
> Ed Bender, MD
>
>
> On 4/9/08 1:28 PM, "dukeb60 at aol.com" <dukeb60 at aol.com> wrote:
>
> > ?? It has been fairly quiet on the forum so I'll post this recent
> response
> > from our State Supreme Court to induce some reaction.? As you know, I am
> a
> > lawyer although I have never practiced law but do have a little more
> > background than the average person and did pass the bar.? I recently had
> a
> > lawyer handle a case for me in which he performed very poorly and what I
> > considered to be in a frankly negligent manner by not representing my
> > interests and failing to even read some rather pertinent legal
> materials.? As
> > a result, I filed a complaint with the Counsel for Discipline of our
> State
> > Supreme court to review his handling of the case.? The response startled
> even
> > me not so much in the conclusion but the rational for the same, which I
> will
> > share.? The respondent wrote,
> >
> > "Isolated instances of ordinary negligence or errors of judgement do not
> rise
> > to the level of a disciplinary violation and are not sufficient to
> warrant
> > disciplinary action.?
> > ?
> > ??As stated in Modern?Legal Ethics (1986):
> > ???
> > ????????? To date, the enforcement of competence standards has been
> generally
> > limited to relatively exotic, blatant, or repeated cases of lawyer
> bungling.?
> > Lawyers who make some showing of effort, and who do nothing other than
> perform
> > badly, rarely appear in the appellate reports in discipline cases.? The
> > lawyers who are disciplined for? incompetence have usually aggravated
> their
> > situation.? For example, several cases involve lawyers who, after their
> > incompetent work, concocted elaborate schemes or lies to decieve a
> client
> > whose case was mishandled.
> >
> > ?? ... For the above reasons I have concluded, pursuant to Rule of
> Discipline
> > 9(C), that your allegations against Attorney "X" do not warrant further
> > inquiry by this office."?
> >
> > ???? So, this is the standard to which our legal professionals are held
> in
> > their handling of cases.? I am quite certain it is not the same standard
> to
> > which we, as medical professionals, are held in the handling of our
> cases.? It
> > is okay to bungle as long as you don't concoct a scheme to conceal the
> > bungling.
> > ?
> > As much as it is hard to believe that is actually what a representative
> of the
> > Supreme Court wrote it is true.? Caveat emptor, clearly, is the rule in
> law.?
> > While I appreciate the education of a law degree, it is indeed
> embarrassing
> > sometimes to be one.
> >
> >
> >
> ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
> > ????????????????????????????????????????? Ed
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