Abstract

In my 22 years of legal practice representing healthcare providers of all sorts, I have defended virtually every type of lawsuit that can be brought against a member of the medical profession. Without exception, each and every one of these lawsuits has been a very stressful, time consuming, and expensive distraction from practice for the healthcare practitioner named as a civil defendant. In the healthcare liability arena, most of the lawsuits I have encountered do in fact involve at least an arguable good-faith dispute over the quality of care provided. (Contrary to some widely held beliefs, plaintiffs’ lawyers have absolutely no incentive, financial or otherwise, to bring patently frivolous claims.) However, in a relatively significant number of cases, I have seen healthcare practitioners brought into a lawsuit for reasons essentially unrelated to the quality of care they provided to their patient.