It is no secret that I used to work in the big bad world of medical malpractice.

Before you get your undies in a bunch, rest assured that I was equal opportunity.  I both sued and defended doctors, hospitals, nurses & more. After working at BPLF and a decent but smaller firm on the other side of the aisle I learned that there are both tragic cases of extreme malpractice and frivolous, money-grubbing lawsuits. Go figure.

My career as either a plaintiff’s attorney (read: sue them’ bastards!) or a defense attorney (read: we deny everything!) didn’t work out for a variety of reasons, but the largest and biggest hurdle in the way of it all was a case pending before the Illinois Supreme Court that addresses our now-indicted Governor’s signature that created medical malpractice caps in the state of Illinois.

For two years my fate at BPLF rested on that decision. For two years the case shuttled around before it made its way to the Big House for final adjudication. As you might guess, if medical malpractice caps are put in place, the whole business of medical malpractice cases is going to become a much smaller, shrinking legal arena, rather than one of growth and prosperity. Regardless of your feelings on caps, this is the end result of them for the legal world. Which meant that as I was graduating from law school I was told, a week before I left to study for the bar exam that the job that had been dangled in front of me as I put in 60+ hours a week while being a law student was no longer there. It just wasn’t. The decision in Lebron v. Gottleib hadn’t come down and until then the area was too volatile to be expanding. Understandable but heartbreaking for the person in my shoes.

The Illinois Supreme Court announced today that the decision in Lebron is anticipated to be filed on Thursday. I’m not holding my breath- the same announcement was made in December only to have no opinion – but I am anxiously awaiting it. When that much of your life, your career and your plans rest on a single written opinion, regardless of where you have moved on to in life, you still care about what the Justices have to say. I’m on pins and needles, wondering what gems might be in there. I know I’ll pour over the opinion, analyzing the repercussions of certain phrases or ideas put forward. No matter what the ultimate decision is, it will affect an area of law that I lived and breathed for years. It will be with a twinge of sadness when I put the opinion down and realize, no matter my analyzing, that the opinion no longer holds any application in my life today. It is, for me, the final nail in the coffin that was my anticipated future.

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A few things I learned about medical malpractice, for those curious:

• The reason you hear about million dollar + awards is because they don’t happen very often.

• The majority of the time those millions of dollars are actually for economic damages. The cost of round-the-clock care for a child born with severe brain damage but no physical issues is mind numbing, and those children are generally expected to live a normal life span – which means we are talking about seventy odd years of nursing care, wheelchairs & therapy.

• California has had medical malpractice caps in place for more than 20 years. Their insurance rates for physicians malpractice insurance remains comparable to the rest of the nation.

• There are some truly horrible doctors out there- ones who deny care to patients in emergency rooms, miss surgery because they are dallying in supply closets ala Grey’s Anatomy & who perform illegal cosmetic procedures in low-income neighborhoods for cash under the (dirty) table. That said, for every truly horrible doctor there are five wonderful ones providing excellent patient care.

• There are some truly horrible patients out there, who think that a long recovery from an operation, lingering numbness or need for a prescription, or a painful scar warrant them the opportunity to dip into the physician’s “cash register”.  That said, for every bad patient are five who accept an apology for a “screw up” from their Doctor and never dream of calling a lawyer.

• I’ve never, ever seen a plaintiff’s attorney go after a physician’s personal assets, including their house or personal bank account. The majority of physicians and hospitals carry a catastrophic blanket coverage- so if their regular coverage is only $1,000,000 per incident (typical) but a jury verdict comes back for $5,000,000 the catastrophic coverage picks up the remaining $4,000,000. (That is what they pay premiums for.)

• Judges have the ability to reduce jury awards if they are offensive (overly large based on the facts). It might surprise you, but judges exercise this ability. Which means that if a jury awards a large seven figure amount and the judge doesn’t reduce it then, most likely, facts were put into evidence that warranted that amount. Most likely those facts didn’t make it into the two minute press segment on the evening news.

• If you file a lawsuit against a hospital or doctor, do not think that this means you don’t have to pay the medical bills for said illness/injury. This might seem like common sense, but MY GOODNESS people have a hard time with that one. Pay. Your. Bills.