Litigation

Some say that Patrick Hindert must have been hallucinating for alleging that motivational speaker Dan Clark dropped an F-Bomb during his presentation at the 2010. NSSTA annual meeting.

Hindert, the Executive Director of Forge Consulting subsidiary,  The Settlement Services Group, made this allegation during his pedantic "pop off"  SSP and NSSTA 2010 Annual Meetings- Part 8.

This author did not attend the NSSTA annual meeting so cannot specifically say, but former NSSTA President Joe O'Reily had words for Hindert in a comment left on Hindert's blog today:

"Patrick, NSSTA, including myself as a member and Past-President, Chair of the Association's 25th Anniversary year, as well as Dan Clark's presenter at the 2010 NSSTA Annual Meeting, deserves necessary scrutiny as we look at our past practices and plans for our future. Dan Clark's presentation at NSSTA's Annual reflected his consistent message to all his audiences - are you the failing Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the 1980's or the World Champion Dallas Cowboys of the period? He presented the exact team analogy to NSSTA's Leadership Seminar audience in New Orleans in January, 2010 - at a time when he knew little of NSSTA, the industry and its issues. I attended both conferences. His message was simple and clear to me - are you part of the evolution and change necessary to any successful business/industry/team - or are you part of the problem/solution within a changing environment? To me, Dan's message was not criticism of NSSTA - as you state in your Blog - but an inspirational "kick-in-the-pants" to reexamine ourselves from within, individually and collectively, a message he consistently states to all his audiences and people. While we have been developing our business model for thirty-five years, since inception of structured settlements as a claim settlement tool, we continue to evolve - similar to the evolution of our nation's Democratic principles - our Founding Fathers didn't anticipate the changes an emerging nation's resilience required - thus the resulting amendments to our Constitution, over many years. Your words do not fall on deaf ears with me. NSSTA and our entire settlement industry needs to continue evolvement as a strong and continuing representative of those disadvantaged by physical personal injury in the settlement arena. There's no one but us who can do it on their behalf. There's no National Association of Injured Victims. It?s only ?US?, as well those associations connected with NSSTA to the personal injury marketplace. We need to do this together. NSSTA's protections of the federal tax codes favoring structured settlements are without peer. That was clearly evident at the NSSTA 2010 Annual with the program of congressional representatives and settlement planning speakers, i.e. Joe DiGangi and Karen Myers, among others - people I respect and admire. We remain protected as a tax-advantaged product. NSSTA maintains protection of the tax-code(s) on behalf of the injured - and no one else. NSSTA and its member-contributed PAC dollars is an island unto itself and for that NSSTA and its members are to be commended. Your airing, and blogging of criticisms of NSSTA's leadership activities, necessarily causes us to look at ourselves from that broad brush - what we have done in the past and what we need to do going forward , and for that, you have my continuing respect as a friend, thinker, and critic and I thank you. We require continuing scrutiny - and you provide that -to NSSTA, the SSP and NASP. As a thinker and independent NSSTA critic, I encourage you to be a continuing part of the evolving solution to our issues and, seeming, problems. The positive-end-result is our collective goal. Please continue to be a part of the solution. Let's work together, from within and without, to achieve the best possible result for present and future structured settlement recipients. Joe O'Reilly, CSSC

Well said Joe!

Patrick Hindert has still not commented on the naming of Jack Meligan, Michael Upchurch along with the VERY SIGNIFICANT naming of a factoring company representative to the Society of Settlement Planners Board of Directors.