Legal Marketing & PR

Surgically remove lawyers

By Edward Poll, J.D., M.B.A., CMC

For the second day in a row, the WSJ ragged on lawyers. It's front page headline says "How to Surgically Remove Lawyers From Hospitals" ....  Without reading more than the front page headline, one would think that lawyers are a problem for hospitals and need to be removed ... and here's how to do it.

But, when you turn to the Personal Journal section of the paper, the article talks about hospitals' negligence and the fact that many deaths and serious injuries/illnesses are caused by the hospitals and their staffs after the patients enter for other maladies than that which resulted in death.

The writer states that some hospitals are admitting their negligence and approaching the patients and their families with apologies and financial offerings that make sense. Under such circumstances, of course, the patients don't need to work with lawyers ... and that's one way of keeping lawyers out of the discussion. (There are other issues here from the perspective of the patient's protection; that's a subject for another time.)

The real reason for the lawyer is that the institution denies culpability and seeks to stonewall the injured party. What a novel idea -- actually talk to the injured party, admit responsibility and seek to negotiate/mediate a solution acceptable to all parties.

That, however, is not the tone of the headline, nor the attitude of the newspaper. Too bad. Truth should be the standard, not paper sales. I should admit that the headline is not false, just conveys the wrong impression of the article's content.

Full post as published by Law Biz Blog on August 26, 2009 (boomark / email).