Five Things Plaintiff Attorneys Learn After Their First Bad Med Mal Retain

Five things plaintiff attorneys learn after their first bad med mal retain. Usually the expensive way.

The Intake Narrative and the Medical Record Are Two Different Documents

They frequently tell two different stories. The client's memory of what was said is not evidence. The chart is evidence. Those two things need to be reconciled by someone with clinical training before a dollar goes toward retention.

Emotional Weight Is Not a Causation Argument

The most heartbreaking cases are sometimes the least viable. Tragedy and negligence are not the same thing and a jury will be instructed on that distinction. Building a case around the emotional weight of the intake rather than the clinical foundation of the deviation is the most consistent source of expensive mistakes in this practice area.

The Wrong Expert Costs More Than No Expert

Retaining a general surgeon on a hepatobiliary case, or an internist on a critical care case, can undermine an otherwise strong argument. Specialty matching at the expert retention stage is a clinical decision, not a directory search. A pre-litigation screen identifies the right expert before retention, not after.

Documentation Timing Matters as Much as Documentation Content

A note written 14 hours after an event is not equivalent to a note written in real time. The audit trail on an electronic record is part of the chart and it is discoverable. Late documentation changes the evidentiary weight of what is written in it.

The Strongest Cases Have the Simplest Deviations

The cases that settle are usually the ones where the gap between what the standard required and what the chart shows is clear, specific, and hard to explain away. Complex chains of causation across multiple providers are harder to try and harder to settle. If you cannot articulate the deviation in two sentences, the case needs more clinical work.

All five require a clinical review to identify in a specific chart. caseveritas.com.