dollars a month into ads on television and in the phone book,dubbing himself "the Law Doctor." Then the phone calls came. Five years into his new career, his cases finally began going to trial. This was his eighth year as a malpractice attorney, and he had won settlements in at least thirty cases. Eight others had gone to trial, and he had won most of them, too. Two weeks before the Reed trial, he won a $400,000 jury award for a woman whose main bile duct was injured during gallbladder surgery and required several reconstructive operations. (Lang got more than a third of that award. Under Massachusetts state law, attorneys get up to 40 percent of the first $150,000, 33.3 percent of the next $150,000, 30 percent of the next $200,000, and 25 percent of anything over half a million.) Lang has at least sixty cases pending. If he had any money troubles, they are over now.
Lang said that he receives ten to twelve calls a day, mostly from patients or their families, with some referrals from lawyers who don't do malpractice. He turns most of them away. He wants a good case, and a good case has to have two things, he said. "Number one, you need the doctor to be negligent. Number two, you need the doctor to have caused damage." Many of the cases fail on both counts. "I had a call from one guy. He says, 'I was waiting in the emergency room for four hours. People were taken ahead of me, and I was really sick.' I say, 'Well, what happened as a result of that?' 'Nothing, but I shouldn't have to wait for four hours.' Well, that's ridiculous."
Some callers have received negligent care but suffered little harm. In a typical scenario, a woman sees her doctor about a lump in her breast and is told not to worry about it. Still concerned, she sees another doctor, gets a biopsy, and learns thatshe has cancer. "So she calls me up, and she wants to sue the first doctor," Lang said. "Well, the first doctor was negligent. But what are the damages?" She got a timely diagnosis and treatment. "The damages are nothing."
I asked him how great the prospective damages had to be to make the effort worth his while. "It's a gut thing," he said. His expenses on a case are typically forty to fifty thousand dollars. So he would almost never take, say, a dental case. "Is a jury going to give me fifty thousand dollars for the loss of a tooth? The answer is no." The bigger the damages, the better. As another attorney told me, "I'm looking for a phone number"--damages worth seven figures.
Another consideration is how the plaintiff will come across to jurors. Someone may have a great case on paper, but Lang listens with a jury in mind. Is this person articulate enough? Will he or she seem unreasonable or strange to others? Indeed, a number of malpractice attorneys I spoke to confirmed that the nature of the plaintiff, not just of the injury, was a key factor in the awarding of damages. Vernon Glenn, a highly successful trial attorney from Charleston, South Carolina, told me, "The ideal client is someone who matches the social, political, and cultural template of where you are." He told me about a case he had in Lexington County, South Carolina--a socially conservative, devoutly Christian county that went 72 percent for George W. Bush in the 2004 election and produces juries unsympathetic to malpractice lawyers. But his plaintiff was a white, Christian female in her thirties with three young children who had lost her husband--a hardworking, thirty-nine-year-old truck mechanic who loved NASCAR, had voted Republican for the past twenty years, andhad built the addition to their country home himself--to a medical error. During routine gallbladder surgery, doctors caused a bowel injury that they failed to detect (his wife called several times about his worsening pain after he was discharged home from the hospital, but she was told to just give him more pain medication) until he collapsed and died. The woman was articulate and attractive but not so good-looking as to put
Lang said that he receives ten to twelve calls a day, mostly from patients or their families, with some referrals from lawyers who don't do malpractice. He turns most of them away. He wants a good case, and a good case has to have two things, he said. "Number one, you need the doctor to be negligent. Number two, you need the doctor to have caused damage." Many of the cases fail on both counts. "I had a call from one guy. He says, 'I was waiting in the emergency room for four hours. People were taken ahead of me, and I was really sick.' I say, 'Well, what happened as a result of that?' 'Nothing, but I shouldn't have to wait for four hours.' Well, that's ridiculous."
Some callers have received negligent care but suffered little harm. In a typical scenario, a woman sees her doctor about a lump in her breast and is told not to worry about it. Still concerned, she sees another doctor, gets a biopsy, and learns thatshe has cancer. "So she calls me up, and she wants to sue the first doctor," Lang said. "Well, the first doctor was negligent. But what are the damages?" She got a timely diagnosis and treatment. "The damages are nothing."
I asked him how great the prospective damages had to be to make the effort worth his while. "It's a gut thing," he said. His expenses on a case are typically forty to fifty thousand dollars. So he would almost never take, say, a dental case. "Is a jury going to give me fifty thousand dollars for the loss of a tooth? The answer is no." The bigger the damages, the better. As another attorney told me, "I'm looking for a phone number"--damages worth seven figures.
Another consideration is how the plaintiff will come across to jurors. Someone may have a great case on paper, but Lang listens with a jury in mind. Is this person articulate enough? Will he or she seem unreasonable or strange to others? Indeed, a number of malpractice attorneys I spoke to confirmed that the nature of the plaintiff, not just of the injury, was a key factor in the awarding of damages. Vernon Glenn, a highly successful trial attorney from Charleston, South Carolina, told me, "The ideal client is someone who matches the social, political, and cultural template of where you are." He told me about a case he had in Lexington County, South Carolina--a socially conservative, devoutly Christian county that went 72 percent for George W. Bush in the 2004 election and produces juries unsympathetic to malpractice lawyers. But his plaintiff was a white, Christian female in her thirties with three young children who had lost her husband--a hardworking, thirty-nine-year-old truck mechanic who loved NASCAR, had voted Republican for the past twenty years, andhad built the addition to their country home himself--to a medical error. During routine gallbladder surgery, doctors caused a bowel injury that they failed to detect (his wife called several times about his worsening pain after he was discharged home from the hospital, but she was told to just give him more pain medication) until he collapsed and died. The woman was articulate and attractive but not so good-looking as to put
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