Bench Bar Committee - August 12, 2003
MEMORANDUM TO: CHARLESTON COUNTY CIVIL BENCH BAR COMMITTEE FR: MARK C. JOVE RE: Meeting of August 12, 2003 On August 12, 2003, the Bench Bar Committee met. Present were Judge Deadra Jefferson, Judge Jefferson's law clerk, Mark Tanenbaum, Don Michel, Julie Armstrong, Malcolm Crosland, and myself. Due to the discussion at the last meeting concerning the Charleston County Medical Legal Committee, I invited Malcolm Crosland who is the chair of this committee and has been the chair for several years. Malcolm distributed the Charleston County Medical Society Guidelines for Medical Legal Fees along with the Guidelines for Cooperation between the Charleston County Bar Association and the Charleston County Medical Society. These documents are currently listed on the Charleston County Bar website. Malcolm and his committee have been meeting regularly for many years to increase cooperation among members of the medical and legal community regarding litigated matters. Unfortunately, there are a number of factors at work here with the legal and medical professions which can make it difficult to communicate and cooperate with each other. One thing is for sure, keeping an open dialogue between the two professions is critical and cooperation among the two is essential to protect the interests of the lawyer's clients who also happen to be patients of the doctors. Cooperation between the two often gets exacerbated by "bad apples" on both sides which often times could have easily been avoided had there been more communication with each other and acknowledgment of each person's rights and duties. Such problem issues concern:
Once a year, there is a combined meeting of representatives of the Charleston County Medical Society with representatives of the Charleston County Medical Legal Committee for which Malcolm chairs. These combined committees also put on a seminar once a year to try to inform interested physicians in advising them of their rights and obligations and duties regarding litigated matters and ways that these duties can be effectively and efficiently performed. This spring, the combined groups have an ambitious project to put on a seminar that will include discussions regarding the current tort reform debate and will include representatives from the insurance industry, medical society, and legal profession. This should be a well attended event. It was discussed at this meeting about trying to include discussions at other lawyer seminars as well as medical seminars to again "get out the word" about ways to effectively and efficiently coordinate the scheduling and compensation issues listed above with regard to a physician's testimony and litigated matters. Thus, we are going to try to include this subject in more seminars among our bar organization and we will also try to see if we can take a few minutes during particular medical seminars as well. We also discussed sending out some materials in one of the medical society newsletters and also our bar newsletters. We also discussed about conducting such discussions in the medical school and also meetings with our young lawyers division. We will also have this posted on the website. Again, we had a very open and frank discussion of the many issues that are confronting us and doctors and we will continue to strive to obtain an open communication line to help ensure understanding of each side's position and obligations so we can continue to make this situation better and efficient for all. We ended the meeting and thanked Malcolm Crosland for all of the hard work that his committee has been doing. We adjourned and set the next meeting for October 7, 2003 at 12:00 in Julie Armstrong's conference room. All are invited to attend. If anyone has any additional issues to address, please contact me at markjoye@joyelawfirm.com |
