Muddying the Mental Health Waters
<b><i>Too Many Professionals Can Wreak Legal Havoc</i></b> Psychiatry is far from being the only mental health profession. A review of the statutes in just this author's state of Alaska reveals separate professional licensing boards for social workers, marital and family therapists, nurses, professional counselors, psychologists, psychological associates and, of course, physicians.
Spoliation of Evidence: The Lost Records Effect
There are two types of spoliation of evidence in medical negligence litigation: physical and content. Physical spoliation of evidence occurs where the tortfeasor physically destroys evidence or in some way makes the evidence unavailable. For example, there's the "shredder effect," where the record is physically destroyed. Or the record can be left on the Risk Manager's desk until the day prior to trial. In either event, there is no physical record.
Jury Awards $12.5 Million to Paralyzed Boy
In one of the largest medical malpractice verdicts in Connecticut state history, a jury ordered Hartford Hospital to pay $12.5 million to a boy who became paralyzed from the neck down while awaiting surgery for a spinal tumor 7 years ago.
Verdicts
Recent cases of importance to your practice.
1099-MISCgivings: Reporting Taxable Awards & Settlements
The Federal tax code and corresponding regulations require a lawyer to send a 1099-MISC form to certain individuals (and non-incorporated business entities) who receive disbursements from the lawyer's trust fund for legal awards and settlements. Writing on behalf of a law firm, an accounting firm reader has asked about the proper way to report such disbursements.
The Ethics of Billing by the Hour for 'Recycled' Work
One of the most difficult attorney billing issues is how a lawyer may receive fair compensation for the "intellectual property" value of work products reused for a later client. An attorney who has spent substantial time developing interrogatories, jury charges, legal memoranda or other such documents for one client naturally will want to "recycle" the same materials when they are relevant to later clients. But on what, if any, basis can the lawyer legitimately bill for this recycled work?
Key Considerations in Choosing a Survey
Part One of this article offered a general overview and comparison of the major surveys currently available for US law firms (Altman Weil's "The Survey of Law Firm Economics"; Hoffman Alvary's "The Flash Report on Law Firm Economics"; and Pricewaterhouse Coopers' "The Law Firm Statistical Survey"). Part Two offers advice on how to select a survey.
Significant Changes for EEO-1 Form
The EEOC has proposed significant changes in the way EEO-1 forms are to be completed, including revisions to the scope of the race/ethnicity categories and in the definition of job categories.
Writing Insights
<i>Put the argument into a concrete shape, into an imagesome hard phrase, sound and solid as a ball, which they can see and handle and carry home with them and the cause is half won.</i>-Ralph Waldo Emerson
