One of the strangest experiences I ever had as a lawyer was representing a defendant in an asbestos case. I didn’t do any product liability or mass tort work as an attorney, so when I was randomly assigned to represent a client whose predecessor company owned a railroad, I was in uncharted territory. The lawyers that work on asbestos cases, particularly the plaintiffs lawyers, are a highly focused group. The defense attorneys represent clients that are sued over and over for the same thing, so the group all seems to know each other. It is a highly profitable endeavor for both sides; plaintiffs that suffer from mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer believed to be caused only be asbestos exposure, tend to receive high damage awards because of the terrible nature of their illness and inevitable death. Plaintiffs lawyers get 30-40% of those rewards. As I mentioned above, the companies responsible for asbestos tend to be sued over and over, so their lawyers can bill lots of hours to fairly routine cases. I found the entire case to be upsetting, as the lawyers involved in the case I worked on seemed to view it as just another cash cow. I am sure there are lots of noble tort lawyers out there, but as I sat in the deposition of the plaintiff alongside defense attorneys who were literally reading the newspaper while he testified, I realized that tort work was not for me.
This morning I read about a new twist in an already twisted system: the relationship between plaintiffs’ lawyers and the doctors that treat mesothelioma patients. The Wall Street Journal details how the doctors refer their patients to specific lawyers, and those lawyers are often those that are funding the doctors’ research through donations. These donations are really important, as it is very difficult to get money for research on mesothelioma, which strikes a relatively small number of people, and will likely stop showing up as the generation of people exposed to asbestos ends. The doctors involved claim that there is no quid pro quo involved, and they are just glad to get the donations. The lawyers claim they are just trying to do a good thing.
Others, including many doctors, are critical, and concerned that the donations create a conflict of interest that may lead to the patient’s best interest being put second to attorney requests. The article details requests by attorneys such as wanting a patient to have an unnecessary surgery to increase damage awards, or asking for tissue samples when removing tissue could be harmful to the patient.
Is this financial and personal relationship between lawyers and doctors a bad thing? Utilitarians would approve; certainly more good is created: more money for research and lawyers helping patients seek a remedy for their damages. But there is this nagging concern that the pitfalls of a conflict of interest will trip up the lawyers or the doctors, even those with the best intentions.
What do you think? Should doctors take research money from lawyers?
5 Comments
Roger McLaughlin posted on May 6, 2013 at 3:57 pm
No matter what either party says, I believe that this certainly constitutes a quid pro quo system between these doctors and lawyers. I feel that it is a violation of doctor’s Hippocratic Oath to put their own personal wealth and benefit ahead of patients’ best interests. Doctors pledge to keep the sick from harm and injustice, and I believe that subjecting them to procedures, in hopes of increasing money damages and in turn their monetary benefits is the definition of unethical. I understand the need to get funds for mesothelioma research but that should not mean that doctors put their patients at risk to do so.
Looking from a legal perspective, I think this practice also tarnishes the justice system and the reputations of the lawyers involved. To pressure doctors to perform procedures on mesothelioma patients in order to increase damages is not only unethical but is blatantly trying to work the legal system.
Both doctors and lawyers involved in this practice should be ashamed of themselves.
Jorg posted on August 18, 2014 at 9:42 pm
Hi there! Do you know iif they make any plugins to help with SEO?
I’m trying to get my blog tto rank for some
targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very good results.
If you know of any please share. Thank you!
Maddison posted on May 9, 2015 at 11:27 am
Thanks for the good writeup. It iin fact was a entertainment account
it. Glance complex to far brought agreeable from you!
However, how could we keep up a correspondence?
sada husne posted on April 22, 2017 at 2:54 pm
this is really nice post thanks for sharing such a nice content i came from google first time 🙂
Roger posted on June 1, 2019 at 12:31 am
In the event that mesothelioma is a kind of rare and agressive cancer, at the same time it has become a great market or a niche for lawyers who deal with this type of legal case, and the doctors obviously will take advantage of this situation, well we need to take into consideration that the medicine industry is also a business that consist on keeping the patient sick. But a very concerning fact is that about submitting a patient to a unnecessary surgery that can be harmful, only with the intention to get more money.
One Trackback
[…] to please lawyers. A Boston University professor who long ago represented asbestos defendants wonders if “the pitfalls of a conflict of interest will trip up the lawyers or the doctors, even those […]