medicine, isn't that true?" he later asked.
I could not tell whether the jury was buying Lang's insinuations. His examination made my skin crawl. I could picture myself on the stand being made to defend any number of cases in which things didn't turn out well and I hadn't got every last discussion down on paper. Lang was sixty years old, bald, short, and loud. He paced constantly and rolled his eyes at Reed's protestations. He showed no deference and little courtesy. He was almost a stereotype of a malpractice lawyer--except in one respect, and that was the reason I'd come to watch this particular trial: Barry Lang used to be a doctor.
For twenty-three years, he had a successful practice as anorthopedic surgeon, with particular expertise in pediatric orthopedics. He'd even served as an expert witness on behalf of other surgeons. Then, in a turnabout, he went to law school, gave up his medical practice, and embarked on a new career suing doctors. Watching him, I wondered, had he come to a different understanding of doctors' accountability than the rest of us?
I WENT TO meet Lang at his office in downtown Boston, on the tenth floor of One State Street, in the heart of the financial district. He welcomed me warmly, and I found that we spoke more as fellow doctors than as potential adversaries. I asked why he had quit medicine to become a malpractice attorney. Was it for the money?
He laughed at the idea. Going into law "was a money disaster," he said. Starting out, he had expected at least some rewards. "I figured I'd get some cases, and if they were good the doctors would settle them quickly and get them out of the way. But no. I was incredibly naive. No one ever settles before the actual court date. It doesn't matter how strong your evidence is. They always think they're in the right. Things can also change over time. And, given the choice of paying now or paying later, which would you rather do?"
He entered law practice, he said, because he thought he'd be good at it, because he thought he could help people, and because, after twenty-three years in medicine, he was burning out. "It used to be 'Two hip replacements today--yay!'" he recalled. "Then it became 'Two hip replacements today--ugh.'"
When I spoke to his wife, Janet, she said that his decision to change careers shocked her. From the day she met him, when they were undergraduates at Syracuse University, in New York, he'd never wanted to be anything other than a doctor. After medical school in Syracuse and an orthopedics residency at Temple University in Philadelphia, he had built a busy orthopedics practice in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and led a fulfilling and varied life. Even when he enrolled in night classes at Southern New England School of Law, a few blocks from his office, she didn't think anything of it. He was, as she put it, "forever going to school." One year, he took English literature classes at a local college. Another year, he took classes in Judaism. He took pilot lessons and before long was entering airplane aerobatics competitions. Law school, too, began as another pastime--"It was just for kicks," he said.
After he finished, though, he took the bar exam and got his license. He got certified as a public defender and took occasional cases defending indigent clients. He was fifty years old. He'd been in orthopedics practice long enough to have saved a lot of money, and law began to seem much more interesting than medicine. In July 1997 he handed his practice over to his startled partners, "and that was the end of it," he said.
He figured that the one thing he could offer was his medical expertise, and he tried to start his legal practice by defending physicians. But because he had no experience, the major law firms that dealt with malpractice defense wouldn't take him, and the malpractice insurers in the state wouldn't send him cases. So he rented a small office and set up shop as a malpractice attorney for patients. He sunk several thousand
I could not tell whether the jury was buying Lang's insinuations. His examination made my skin crawl. I could picture myself on the stand being made to defend any number of cases in which things didn't turn out well and I hadn't got every last discussion down on paper. Lang was sixty years old, bald, short, and loud. He paced constantly and rolled his eyes at Reed's protestations. He showed no deference and little courtesy. He was almost a stereotype of a malpractice lawyer--except in one respect, and that was the reason I'd come to watch this particular trial: Barry Lang used to be a doctor.
For twenty-three years, he had a successful practice as anorthopedic surgeon, with particular expertise in pediatric orthopedics. He'd even served as an expert witness on behalf of other surgeons. Then, in a turnabout, he went to law school, gave up his medical practice, and embarked on a new career suing doctors. Watching him, I wondered, had he come to a different understanding of doctors' accountability than the rest of us?
I WENT TO meet Lang at his office in downtown Boston, on the tenth floor of One State Street, in the heart of the financial district. He welcomed me warmly, and I found that we spoke more as fellow doctors than as potential adversaries. I asked why he had quit medicine to become a malpractice attorney. Was it for the money?
He laughed at the idea. Going into law "was a money disaster," he said. Starting out, he had expected at least some rewards. "I figured I'd get some cases, and if they were good the doctors would settle them quickly and get them out of the way. But no. I was incredibly naive. No one ever settles before the actual court date. It doesn't matter how strong your evidence is. They always think they're in the right. Things can also change over time. And, given the choice of paying now or paying later, which would you rather do?"
He entered law practice, he said, because he thought he'd be good at it, because he thought he could help people, and because, after twenty-three years in medicine, he was burning out. "It used to be 'Two hip replacements today--yay!'" he recalled. "Then it became 'Two hip replacements today--ugh.'"
When I spoke to his wife, Janet, she said that his decision to change careers shocked her. From the day she met him, when they were undergraduates at Syracuse University, in New York, he'd never wanted to be anything other than a doctor. After medical school in Syracuse and an orthopedics residency at Temple University in Philadelphia, he had built a busy orthopedics practice in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and led a fulfilling and varied life. Even when he enrolled in night classes at Southern New England School of Law, a few blocks from his office, she didn't think anything of it. He was, as she put it, "forever going to school." One year, he took English literature classes at a local college. Another year, he took classes in Judaism. He took pilot lessons and before long was entering airplane aerobatics competitions. Law school, too, began as another pastime--"It was just for kicks," he said.
After he finished, though, he took the bar exam and got his license. He got certified as a public defender and took occasional cases defending indigent clients. He was fifty years old. He'd been in orthopedics practice long enough to have saved a lot of money, and law began to seem much more interesting than medicine. In July 1997 he handed his practice over to his startled partners, "and that was the end of it," he said.
He figured that the one thing he could offer was his medical expertise, and he tried to start his legal practice by defending physicians. But because he had no experience, the major law firms that dealt with malpractice defense wouldn't take him, and the malpractice insurers in the state wouldn't send him cases. So he rented a small office and set up shop as a malpractice attorney for patients. He sunk several thousand
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