Medical Malpractice
The only manner in which to properly ascertain your legal rights is to discuss such matters with an attorney who is experienced in these matters. The Cooper Law Firm handles medical malpractice claims limited to wrongful death type cases.
The first thing you need to know is that any medical malpractice case is both difficult to administer and to prove. Therefore, anyone involved in such a case must have patience in order to succeed. Medical malpractice investigation and research takes approximately six months no matter how clear liability may seem to the injured, because the attorney has an ethical duty to investigate the facts, review the medical records and request a medical opinion from a medical expert.
All of this includes the following...
- Gathering information from you
- Requesting documents from all sources regarding medical treatment
- Reviewing these documents thoroughly to make an initial determination of whether or not we feel negligence may have occurred
- Having an independent registered nurse review the documents and discussing the claim with that nurse
- Having a medical doctor (i.e. expert) review the documents and discussing the claim with that doctor
- Making a final determination as to (a) how we feel your case will proceed, (b) what we feel your chances of winning the case are, and (c) an estimated amount of potential monetary recovery (i.e. how much money we feel you might recover
After the investigation and research is completed, the attorney will discuss the results of that investigation and research and advise the potential client regarding the chances of monetary recovery.
The second thing you need to know is that medical malpractice may not be what you believe it to be. Sometimes patients are angry at the medical practitioner because the bill was too high, the doctor was rude or the patient was not satisfied with the end results of the medical treatment. THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY MALPRACTICE!
Medical malpractice is a failure of a medical practitioner to follow the standard of care expected of all practitioners in his/her particular field of expertise. An independent medical expert who practices in the same medical field as the alleged wrongdoer must testify in a lawsuit that in his/her opinion the medical practitioner deviated (i.e. did not follow) that standard of care and either that expert or an additional expert must testify regarding damages (i.e. how was the injured hurt by all this). Without these things a malpractice case will almost always fail.
Therefore, I would ask that you review your facts in your own mind, think about your motivation (i.e. reason) for alleging medical malpractice, consider not just whether you have been wronged, but also whether you were further injured by the incident, and decide for yourself if you feel strongly about moving forward with the matter.
After having done that, I would ask that you consider the following: Conducting the above research and investigation costs time and money. Therefore, we must request a fifteen hundred dollar ($1500) research and investigation fee in order to proceed with the research and investigation of the matter.
After we have conducted our six month research and investigation, if you and I both agree to proceed to sue the medical practitioner who was negligent, our law firm will do so on a contingency basis. That is, we will charge you no more money “up front” out of your pocket. We will either settle “out-of-court”, or we will proceed to trial before a jury. At that point, our fees will be deducted from the money we recover for you. We would also recover from the settlement funds we will by then have paid for experts, depositions, etc. If for some reason you recover nothing, then we recover nothing except for funds paid for experts, depositions, etc. All of this would be explained before suit is filed.
If you still feel strongly about the issue, please feel free to contact our office to schedule a telephone conference. If we decide to continue after the telephone conference we will forward to you our questionnaire so that you may fill it out and bring it with you to an initial interview we will schedule. We will schedule that meeting only after receiving the $1500 research and investigation fee in the form of cash, cashier’s check or money order.
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