March 2009

Kudos to my State Senator, Judson Hill (R-Marietta), sponsor of Senate Bill 94, which if passed would allow adult offspring to maintain coverage under their parents health insurance up to age 25, regardless of school enrollment status. In the current economy, jobs of any kind are tough for young people just out of school to find. And when they do find jobs, too often health insurance benefits are lacking. With two kids now in college, I  am eager to see this pass into law.


This morning I met with a family who suffered a tragic loss when a tractor trailer ran over the parents late in 2008.  The mother was killed and the father seriously injured. 

They got me involved a couple of weeks after the crash when one of the sons found me on the Internet and invited me to meet with the family.  We put our rapid response strategy to work and are now on the brink of settling the case for all available insurance policy limits. 

Because I agreed to reduce my contingent fee to 20% if we settled within the first

The tragdy of spinal cord injury may be alleviated in the future if researchers at Northwestern University are right.

They are working on use of nanofibers to get disconnected nerve cells to regrow. The idea is to inject a liquid containing  molecules called peptide amphiphiles to generate nerve growth.  Studies with lab animals with severed spinal cords have been promising.

As the parent of a young adult who is deaf due to neurofibromatosis that required severing of auditory nerves, I wonder about the potential use of this to regrow auditory nerves too.

At the beginning of the current legislative session, the Governor announced plans for a "frivolous litigation" to require that any plaintiff who loses a motion to dismiss to pay the defendant’s attorney fee, and to have an automatic and indeterminate stay of discovery while a motion to dismiss is pending.

As of yesterday, the bill was watered down by removing the attorney fee provisions, which are duplicative of not less than five other "loser pays" provisions in existing Georgia law, and to limit the automatic stay to 120 days with earlier discovery permitted regarding the basis of the motion to dismiss.

I testified briefly at the Senate Judiciary subcommittee that took up the bill.  While I expressed appreciation for withdrawal of the attorney fees provision, I pointed out that a defendant may already file a motion for protective order or motion for stay of discovery.  The bill does nothing positive that cannot be done under existing Georgia law.  Current law is not broken on this point, and that the "law of unintended consequences" is in full force and effect. 

The potential for frivolous motions to dismiss being used for purposes of delay, and for "accidental" destruction of evidence during the automatic stay is troubling.

If this bill becomes law, plaintiffs’ attorneys faced with a motion to dismiss will need to immediately conduct aggressive discovery about the basis of the motions including exhaustive 30(b)(6) depositions of corporate defendants regarding the basis of their motions,  serve notices to withdraw the frivolous defenses under existing attorney fee statutes, and schedule an expedited hearing to get the court to rule on the motions.  We would do well to have targeted discovery and briefs ready to meet any frivolous motions to dismiss. 

The new law, if enacted, will just add another layer of complexity, expense and delay, while accomplishing virtually nothing that the proponents say they want .

Since it’s a tough budget year in which even I can’t advocate spending  money on a new web site, I’m working on ideas for a low-budget refreshing of the State Bar of Georgia web site.

I would appreciate any suggestions for things we can do to make it more interesting, up to date, streamlined, easy to navigate, and of high value to members and the public. And do it all with in-house resources and virtually no budget. Of course any ideas I may put together will then go through the appropriate committees and staff.