A Defense Attorney's Agenda

You have brought a lawsuit seeking compensation for the injuries you suffered at the hands of a doctor or hospital. Your goal, is to win your case and to obtain "Justice" for the  injury you suffered. Your attorney is known as a "plaintiff's attorney." His entire goal is to obtain compensation for your injuries. His success is directly linked to yours. Should he win your case or settle your case favorably, he stands to receive a portion of whatever is recovered, after his expenses.

Not many people outside of New York recognize that the lawyer's fee in medical malpractice cases in New York only starts at 30% and decreases by 5% as we go up in the amount we recover for you. To put it simply: 30% is the maximum fee allowed in New York.  As we go up incrementally, the attorney's fee goes down by 5%. This is known as a "sliding scale."

What does this have to do with a defense attorney's agenda? Everything.

A defense attorney's job is to defend the doctor or hospital as best he can. A defense lawyer gets paid by the doctor's insurance company. He gets paid an hourly fee for the work he performs. It is an unspoken fact that defense attorneys prefer to handle a case as long as possible before having to resolve it or go to trial. Why? The longer they handle a particular case, the more they are able to bill for the work they perform. There is no incentive for a defense attorney to resolve a case sooner rather than later.

Having said that, there are some excellent medical malpractice defense lawyers in New York who recognize troublesome cases at the beginning of a lawsuit. Those experienced trial lawyers will sometimes attempt to resolve a case in the early stages to save the insurance company money by having to pay extensive legal fees, a protracted trial and appeal.

Good defense attorneys who recognize they cannot defend a case will recommend to their insurance carrier that they should make an effort to resolve a case sooner rather than later. An early settlement can often save an insurance company a great deal of money by discounting the ultimate amount of compensation a victim receives years before the case goes to trial.

An experienced plaintiff's attorney recognizes the benefits of early settlement because it means that his client will receive a guaranteed amount of money years earlier, without the need to spend many thousands of dollars. Of course, along with that early settlement proposal, both sides recognize that they expect some type of discount for the benefit of settling early.

The defense attorney's only incentive to settle a case early and save the insurance company money is the knowledge that doing so may put him in good standing with the insurance company.  An attorney who saves an insurance company money is likely to benefit from additional cases that the insurance company  sends to them as a "reward" for saving money.

Conclusion:

When you wonder why your case is not settling early, keep in mind a defense attorney's hidden agenda and recognize that you may have to go to trial in order to prove your case. Your attorney should recognize this and be prepared to go the distance in every case.