Med Mal Antidote: Good Records
Any physician who has had the unfortunate experience of being the target of a medical malpractice lawsuit bemoans the attention paid by the plaintiff's lawyers to precise record keeping. Most physicians pride themselves on their medical skills, not their neat note taking. They will tell you that entries in a medical record are meant to enhance the care and treatment rendered to a patient, not to be read by lawyers or juries many years later.
Preserving Your Clients' Right to Recovery
The exclusive remedy for patients injured due to medical malpractice by federal employees acting within the scope of their employment is through the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). Under the FTCA, the United States allows claims to be made against it in certain circumstances. However, because the FTCA is a waiver of sovereign immunity, strict compliance with the requirements for filing is necessary in order to preserve your clients' rights to recovery.
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Litigation
Recent cases of importance to your practice.
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Keep Your Client 'On Board!'
As lawyers, we spend a lot of time keeping ourselves current on the law, attending continuing legal education programs, and learning how to deal with experts. Sometimes, in the middle of our frenzied search for a latest case and the latest technique, we need to get back to the basics. One of the most important basics about which we should remind ourselves is the need for good client communication.
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Mental Health Experts in Family Law: How They Work
The roles of mental health professionals in child custody litigation are both varied and important. In these cases, there may be a treating professional…
Departing Partners: Duties and Pitfalls
A modern day fixture of the law firm is the revolving door. The increasing frequency with which partners leave law firms for new ones raises many issues concerning the permissibility of a withdrawing attorney's conduct regarding client/attorney solicitation, removal of client files or other documents and breach of anti-competition clauses in partnership agreements. In addition to adherence to the professional ethical rules, a partner is subject to a fiduciary duty to his firm and is thus constrained by such duty throughout the life of the partnership.
The Lateral Partner Process: Three Perspectives
According to <i>The American Lawyer</i>, fully 40% of partners in the AmLaw 200 firms will move laterally at least once as partners. This is an astonishing statistic, since lateral partner movement was virtually unheard of a generation ago. Freed from the stigma that once haunted a partner who abandoned his partnership, today's law partners tend to be pragmatists who no longer view their firms as homes for life. Instead, they see them as vehicles to drive their businesses to higher levels. In this article, we take a brief look at lateral partner recruitment from the different perspectives of the law firms, the candidates and the recruiters.
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Decisions of Interest
Recent decisions of importance to your practice.
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A Word to the Wise
Discovery of electronic communications. Employees generally cannot live without it (if they hope to state a claim), but often cannot afford to pay for it. Employers can generally afford to pay for it, but resent paying to help a plaintiff make his or her case against them. This dilemma is only further exacerbated by the proliferation of electronic communications that has made the discovery of such information very time-consuming and expensive.
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