Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog

The Legal Intelligencer has an interesting article about the size of personal injury law firms. I have always found it interesting that personal injury law firms in Maryland and in most states tend to come in two sizes: small and very small. Peter Angelos’ office in Baltimore is the sole exception in Maryland, largely because they have their hands around the asbestos juggernaut. Otherwise, I do not think there is a single plaintiffs' firm in the top 20 largest Maryland law firms. In contrast, Texas and Florida seem to have much larger, successful personal injury firms. I have never fully understood why the same business model would not apply, regardless of location. But even the largest of plaintiffs' law firms in the country are smaller than Venable's Baltimore office.

Yesterday, we settled a serious car accident case in mediation that I never thought would settle. The client was looking well beyond the fair value of the case, valuing the claim at $2.1 million (our maximum potential recovery with Maryland cap on pain and suffering damages) and defendant undervalued the claim from the very beginning. Somehow, after over six hours, the case miraculously settled. This is one of those cases that I had I had assumed as an article of faith that this case would have gone to trial. It really is hard to tell which cases are going to trial and which cases are going to settle.

But even more incredible than the case settling was the fact that the driver defendant came flew up from his home in Atlanta, Georgia for the mediation. Obviously, he was not required or expected to be there. After the mediation was over, he gave an incredibly articulate two minute speech apologizing to the plaintiff and his wife for the accident. This guy really put himself out in a way that provided him no benefit but he came because he thought it was the right thing to do and he wanted to accept responsiblity. It was one of those things that really gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling about our fellow man.

One more feel good story… I got back to my office this morning and a client who case is pending in Baltimore County Circuit Court sent to our lawyers and staff thanking us for our continued hard work. She included with her note what is essentially a $100 tip! Of course, we will send the check back to her but it definitely boosted my spirits when I got here this morning.

I saw today an interesting blog post by a Massachusetts law firm advocating that Massachusetts ban finance companies who offer loans to people using their personal injury cases as collateral. The post (and a comment to the post) argues that by making the loans non-recourse loans contingent on the settlement, these companies get around existing usury laws. Particularly in cases where liability is not at issue and payment is a near certainty, using non-recourse does seem like a backdoor around the law.

I have no idea of what my opinion is on these personal injury loans. It seems like the interest rate and the fees these companies charge is beyond ridiculous. But I'm sure these are risky loans from people who cannot otherwise obtain a conventional loan or even a credit card. As a personal injury lawyer, the loans are difficult because they make resolving the case and getting the client a good outcome all the more difficult. I had a case this year where the client took out a $23,000 loan that morphed into a $75,000 loan in three years. What ended up being a great settlement offer we received in mediation did not look nearly as good to the client who owed $150,000 in medical bills, legal fees, and the repayment of that loan. In this case, we did call the finance company which agreed to substantially reduce their loan from a preposterous return on investment to a mere obscene return on investment. The guy who I spoke to was a lawyer who owned the company and he was pretty reasonable. In the course of my negotiating the lien, I obviously contended that I thought the interest and fees were simply unconscionable. His response was that you cannot possibly know how many of these loans go bad.

Between unconscionable and reasonable, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle. But obviously, in our free market economy, if there was that much money to be made making these loans, more companies would have entered the market, which would have decreased the overall cost of the loans. This reminds me of personal injury lawyers who complain about the obscene profits insurance companies make. If this were really true, wouldn't we all buy a ton of Allstate stock today? But take a look at their stock over the last three years.

It is worth mentioning that most of these personal injury loan companies have some clause in the agreement with the client that their personal injury lawyer cannot attempt to negotiate the loan. (I hope I am not giving an idea to the companies that don't have that clause.) We take the position that this agreement does not bind us from negotiating the lien and no one has ever suggested that our lawyers are obligated to honor that clause.

Point of Law has an interesting blog post on a new study regarding contingency fees.
I found two conclusions of interest.

First, the study found that people who had the financial means to pay attorneys’ fees up front still preferred a contingency fee arrangement, even if that arrangement meant they were ultimately likely to pay more in fees. Apparently, affluent trial lawyers were also included in the experiment as imaginary plaintiffs, and they too chose the contingency fee agreement over the hourly billing rate. The authors explain that our instinct to be “loss adverse” is the main reason people prefer a contingency fee arrangement even if they expect it will result in higher legal fees. This theory may also explain why people are far more unhappy when they lose $100 than happy when they find $100.

I suspect another reason for this preference that the authors do not point to is that it is less stressful to have some level of cost certainty. I know I do not like paying anyone by the hour, especially when I have no idea how many hours will need to be expended. I would rather just be given an all inclusive price to solve the problem.

Another reason clients may prefer a contingency fee arrangement is that it makes sense. In any business relationship, if you are able to forge a deal where the parties are working with vested interests, you are better off. The personal injury lawyer-client relationship is one of the cases where the parties’ interests line up the best, and the defense lawyer-client relationship is one where the parties’ interests line up the worst. I began my career at a defense firm and clearly remember when one group in our law firm defeated a nationwide class action, saving the client millions of dollars. Everyone looked like they had just lost their best friend. Why? Because victory meant the work would dry up. Is there a different way for defense lawyers to be compensated that would make more sense? If there is, I can’t figure it out. It is just one of those business relationships where the interests of the involved parties are very hard to align.

The study also draws some interesting conclusions about the phenomena that most contingency fee personal injury lawyers charge the same fee. Some have theorized that relatively uniform pricing may be inefficient and there is textbook economic support for that theory. However, the authors conclude that a standard rate endures among personal injury lawyers because of a process called “assortive matching.” In other words, injury victims with the best cases contract with the lawyers with the best reputations, second-best cases are handled by the attorneys with the second-best reputation, and so forth.

This theory largely holds true with very sophisticated clients and because of referrals from other lawyers. As our practice and reputation have grown, the average size of our cases has increased exponentially. But all too often this theory does not hold true. Unsophisticated clients believe that the biggest and best firm in town is the one that has the most television advertisements. Or they believe the guy that got them off on a DWI or wrote a will for them a few years ago, who has never tried a personal injury case, is the best personal injury lawyer to turn to when their wife is killed in a truck accident. In fact, some of the biggest cases we in our office have come from criminal lawyers whose clients return to them when they or someone they love is injured or killed.

So while I think the assertive matching theory holds true to some extent for personal injury lawyers, it often fails. This is not a bad outcome if the lawyer getting the cases does the right thing both for the lawyer and the client and refers the case to a lawyer who has experiencing handling catastrophic cases. But it can be a disaster when the wrong lawyer has the wrong case.

Super Bowl 42 was a great Super Bowl for Miller & Zois for two big reasons. First, buried in our testimonials on our website is a great testimonial from one of our former clients, future Hall of Fame defensive end Michael Strahan, who was in the limelight last night putting relentless pressure on Tom Brady. Second, we sued the New England Patriots about 7 years ago in a medical malpractice case on behalf of one of the Patriots' former players. I think I filed more motions to compel and motions for sanctions against the Patriots than in every other case combined since then. They just could not comply with the most basic requests. Since that case against the Patriots, which ended with a settlement after almost five years of litigation, my favorite team in the NFL has been whoever was playing the Patriots (even though I like almost all of their players).

I hope everyone enjoyed the game. A substantive post should follow later today.

I'm working on finishing a new book I am writing for James Publishing on maximizing the value of personal injury cases that should be out in early spring. I'm sure I'll be plugging my book like crazy at the appropriate time but, for now, I offer it as an excuse for the blogging hiatus that some of you have noted. But expect another post or two next week and then we will be back in full swing after the New Year!

Merry Christmas to all!

Our law firm is looking to add another personal injury lawyer to our growing team in Anne Arundel County. Prior personal injury experience or insurance defense experience for 2-5 years is required (absent something very compelling). Significant benefits package available and salary commensurate with experience. Please fax your resume and salary requirements to 410-760-8922 or e-mail Laura G. Zois laurazois@millerandzois.com.

Dr. Bruce Ammerman, a neurosurgeon and frequent expert in Maryland personal injury cases, died this morning at his office of an apparent heart attack.

Our lawyers have had a number of cases both with and against Dr. Ammerman. All of the litigation cases we had with Dr. Ammerman were when we were defense lawyers. In the last seven years as plaintiffs' lawyers, we have not had any litigation cases with him and have had him on the other side many times. Yet he is one of the few defense medical experts - although he also testified for plaintiffs occasionally as well - that our lawyers would also send our clients to see if they needed a quality neurosurgeon. Many of our current clients were patients of Dr. Ammerman. Beyond that, in spite of the litigation environment that often leads to a contentious relationship between opposing experts and lawyers, I have never heard any lawyers, who may have disagreed with his opinions in a case, say anything bad about Dr. Ammerman personally because he commanded respect and treated everyone with respect. He will be missed.

Funeral services Thursday August 9, 2007 at 11:00 a.m. at Temple Beth Ami, 14330 Travilah Road, Rockville, MD.

The Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog will return tomorrow. I just returned from a great vacation in Dewey Beach, Delaware and I'm ready to get back to blogging. But first... I have to clear off this desk!

The Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog focuses on providing tips and information for personal injury lawyers. Today, I’m using it save me the $200 it would cost to go to a good board certified psychiatrist.

If you read this blog regularly, you will note that I often let our successes slip into this blog, a million dollar settlement here, a million dollar verdict there, and so forth. Over the last few years, we have had an amazing run. Fantastic settlements and our verdicts have been 10 or 15 times the offers we had before trial. I could not be prouder of what we have accomplished for our clients.

Yesterday, this run came to a very bitter end in a trial in Prince George’s County that I will never forget. Defendant pulled out from a stop sign and hit our client, a 36 year-old man (with a beautiful wife and three kids), on the favored road. He was on a motorcycle and witnesses claimed he passed some vehicles on the left and the right before the accident on a one lane road (the widest one lane road you will ever see in your life).

He lost his leg in the accident, an above the left knee amputation. You might think this accident destroyed his life and he has been miserable ever since. Hardly. He is one of the happiest, upbeat, and optimistic people I have ever met in my life.

GEICO offered absolutely nothing to settle the case. Zero. So the decision to go to trial was an easy one. I tried the case this week with my partner, Laura Zois, who did an absolutely fantastic job. We knew it was not an easy case but we thought we presented a compelling case to the jury with a compelling client. After a few hours of deliberation, the jury disagreed.

The best part of the job for a personal injury lawyer is getting a deserving client an award that will make a meaningful impact on the client’s life. There is nothing like it. The worst part of the job is having a great client with a great family and getting a result that you think is unfair and just plain wrong. It just feels awful. If you see me on the street in twenty years from now and you ask me about this case, I’ll still be mad about it.

I’m off now to write post-trial motions….

Why the Maryland Lawyer Blog? We are starting the Maryland Lawyer Blog because the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog focuses exclusively on providing information pertinent to personal injury lawyers in Maryland and around the country handling auto accident, truck accident and medical malpractice cases. Because of this, the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer blog rarely strays off the personal injury course. I read a lot of blogs and when I start reading posts about the author's life philosophies or other off topic messages, I rarely revisit that blog. Accordingly, I try to be disciplined about staying on message: news and information a personal injury lawyer can use.

The Maryland Lawyer Blog will also address issues related to personal injury cases. But it will have a broader base that will include more general areas of the law and specific areas of the law that I find interesting even if I do not practice in those areas. Although my firm only handles personal injury cases, I have interests as a lawyer and as a person in other areas of the law. For example, I'm interested in criminal law even though all of my knowledge of criminal law comes from watching television. So you will see occasional posts on issues ranging from A to Z, from adoption law to zoning ordinances.

Many regular readers of the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog are not going to enjoy this blog because it will be far more rambling and diverse than you have come to expect. My suggestion: give it a shot, if you do not like it, take it off your favorites (and just keep reading the personal injury blog). Hopefully, this blog will also attract other readers whose legal interests extend beyond personal injury cases. I will also pass along news stories and other blog posts that I think you might find of interest.

A great joy of mine has been watching the regular readership of the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog grow over time, which I have been able to track using Google Analytics. Hopefully, the Maryland Lawyer Blog will be able to do the same. It might also be a flop, who knows? But give it a chance and I will try to make the Maryland Lawyer Blog interesting and informative.

The Capital wrote an article yesterday that discusses our law practice and the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog. You can find the article here.

You can find the best boxing gym south of New York just 10 minutes from Baltimore in Severna Park, Maryland. While Club One Fitness has its fair share of professional and amateur boxers, most of our members are boxing not to hit someone for real, in or out of the boxing ring, but to gain the life changing fitness and stress relief boxing affords its disciples. Club One Fitness in Severna Park strikes an even balance between being a serious boxing gym and a club that is inviting and not intimidating for those who don't want to become a serious boxer, but just want to get in shape, work off some stress and have some fun in the process.

Our Baltimore personal injury lawyers handle auto accident, truck accident, or by medical malpractice in and around Baltimore City. If you have been injured in an automobile accident in Baltimore, call one of our Baltimore personal injury lawyers at 410-553-6000 or select here for a free consultation.

I spent a good bit of time this weekend making additions to the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Help Center. What I have done is pull up old emails that requested forms/documents that we have (and forwarded to the requester) but did not have a category on the PI Help Center that really fit the document. So I added a miscellaneous forms and letters category. So far I have added (1) Sample Release, (2) Sample Retainer Agreement (the most requested), (3) Sample HIPPA Authorization, (4) Sample Lost Wage Form, (5) Sample AISG Form (to get client's claim history), (6) Sample Personal Injury Intake, (7) Sample Request for Traffic Light Sequence Report, (8) Sample Affidavit of No Insurance, and (9) Request for Judical Notice as to Time, Speed and Distance.

If there is something you need you think our lawyers may have, let us know and I will be glad to send it to you. The readership of the Maryland Personal Injury Lawyer Blog has gone up dramatically in recent months and it is pretty much impossible to play phone tag with everyone in order to find out the document you seek. Please contact us with any requests through the contact form on this blog or email me at ronmiller@millerandzois.com.

Every wonder why you insurance rates go up when you get a speeding ticket? Study of 3.7 million licensed Maryland drivers shows that ticketing does not reduce drivers' likelihood of getting another ticket for speeding

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine looked at Maryland's licensed drivers and found that getting a speeding ticket almost doubles the risk of receiving a subsequent speeding citation.

The study also turned up interesting data comparing those who go to court for speeding tickets and those that do not. As every Maryland driver knows, if you get a speeding ticket and you were not doing a complete Dale Earnhart impression, you can either go to court (where you will invariably be found guilty so your best bet is to plead guilty) or you can simply pay the fine by mail. The University of Maryland study found that the likelihood of receiving another speeding ticket was 12 percent among drivers who had opted to pay fines and received points on their driving records compared to eight percent among those who received probation before judgment (PBJ). This makes sense. The driver who cared enough to go to court is probably more likely to slow down in the future.

The author also noted that “PBJ appears to be the most effective penalty for speeding, however we do not know if there are other contributing factors influencing drivers receiving PBJ and that these factors are responsible for the lower rate of repeat violations in this group. If the effects of PBJ are due to the punishment itself, perhaps the experience of going to court and appearing before a judge has more of an impact on a violator than sending in a check to pay a fine. Future research is needed to learn more about the deterrent effects of PBJ.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, speeding was a contributing factor in 31 percent of all fatal automobile and truck accidents nationally in 2003. If our auto accident lawyers have learned anything, it is that speed kills. Our lawyers have seen so many accidents where speed was a likely contributing cause. But another common cause of serious car and truck accidents that no one talks much about: the differences between the speeds at which different vehicles travel. This is especially true with truck accidents. The problem with trucks is that they generally take longer time to accelerate to the prevailing speed compared to cars and motorcycles. This results in speed differentials that promote lane changes as cars move aggressively to get around the slower accelerating trucks. The Texas Transportation Institute did a study which found that the imposition of lane restrictions for trucks improves safety by reducing differential vehicle speeds, lane changes and passing maneuvers that cause truck accidents. The study underscored the obvious: the safest conditions exist when cars and trucks are not traveling at widely differing speeds.

Prince George’s County recorded 285 bicycle and pedestrian deaths between 1994 and 2003, far more than Montgomery County, Fairfax County or the District of Columbia, according to a report by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. More pedestrians and bikers are killed Prince George’s County than in any other jurisdiction in the region.

Every year approximately 5,000 pedestrians are killed in motor vehicle collisions in the United States. There a many possible causes for bicycle and pedestrian deaths but our personal injury lawyers too have noted a high number of pedestrian deaths in Prince George's County, one of which Rod Gaston from our office will be taking to trial this spring in Prince George's County Circuit Court. Flaws in road design contribute to many of these deadly collisions but the primary culpability usually rests with the driver or the pedestrian.

If you are a Maryland personal injury lawyer handling motor vehicle accident and/or medical malpractice cases in Maryland, you are missing out on an incredible resource if you are not a member of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association. Our lawyers rely on resources we receive from the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association almost daily in practice. If you are a personal injury lawyer in Maryland and are not a member of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association, do yourself a favor and contact Laura G. Zois at 410-553-6000. Laura is the Chairperson of Maryland Trial Lawyers Association Membership Service Committee.

The Baltimore Sun writes today about a half-mile stretch on Tufton Avenue in Baltimore County horse country that has been the site of six fatal car and motorcycle accidents since 2003. Many of the victims' families have complained about the sharp curve in the road. I grew up in the country and anyone who has driven on country roads in Maryland knows there are some long and winding roads with some tight turns out there. But practically, there are not the resources to rebuild every road with a tight turn in Maryland. Most of these acccidents had some of the usual leitmotifs of fatal accident cases: alcohol, youth and motorcycles.

What is the point of this post? I am not sure, exactly. Road engineers have looked at the road and found it safe. I suspect it is just a coincidence that so many fatal accidents have occurred on this particular strip of road. But this article reminds you of just how risky motor vehicle travel can be, and how important it is to drive carefully and defensively. I know how trite that sounds, but it really is true.

Last month, I wrote about Club One Fitness, a health club in the Severna Park/Millersville area in Anne Arundel County. If you would like to see the club, click here which takes you to a youtube.com video of the facility. I've been in hundreds of health and fitness clubs and I think this club has the best look and feel to it I have ever seen. In the video, I'm the guy who shoots - and makes I might add - the set shot on the basketball court.

Sorry for the off topic post. I will be back later today with a personal injury related post.