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Bird, Jacobsen & Stevens, P.C.
Ironwood Square Building
300 Third Avenue SE, Suite 305
Rochester, MN 55904

507-282-1503 | Contact Us

Medical Malpractice and Professional Malpractice

Professional people (doctors, lawyers, accountants, psychologists, nurses, architects, engineers, etc.) often are called upon to handle and solve important problems. Because of advanced education and college degrees, such persons charge high fees for services rendered. When they do their jobs correctly, professionals are worth every penny that consumers pay. However, when professionals make mistakes, the consequences can be serious and occasionally devastating.

Professionals make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. The law rightly holds professionals accountable for such mistakes. Accountability for mistakes in judgment and practice is a value Americans hold dear. All too often, mistakes by professionals are “covered up” and glossed over. It is often very difficult to obtain documents, digitally stored data and other evidence to prove that a mistake was made. Choosing the right lawyer is important.

Professionals routinely pay insurance companies for malpractice insurance, creating a fund for recovery of money for injured consumers. In our system of justice, this means that insurance companies, not the professionals, handle the “purse strings” on any malpractice claim. They hire “expert witnesses” from a pool of well-paid consultants that are at their beck and call. They hire extremely well-paid lawyers from “silk stocking” law firms to defend every case. It is often difficult and always very expensive for injured consumers to take on these insurance companies to obtain justice and hold negligent professionals accountable.

Because of large advertising campaigns by insurance companies, often slickly fraudulently posing as consumer advocate organizations, many common folks have a mistaken belief that malpractice doesn’t exist, that trial lawyers are getting rich by suing professionals, and that enormous amounts of money are going into the pockets of persons who claim to be injured when they are not. Nothing could be further from the truth. The insurance companies rarely pay anything in settlement without a fight, even though they charge the professionals enormous amounts for premiums. There is no “crisis” of malpractice lawsuits. Doctors in Minnesota, for example, decided to form their own insurance company after years of paying exorbitant premiums from the national carriers, and found that the amount they could make from charging premiums was so high that large sums could be reimbursed to policyholders. The same is true for lawyers in Minnesota.

Choosing the right lawyer is important when considering making a professional malpractice claim. The lawyers at Bird, Jacobsen & Stevens know how to get the documents and other evidence from the insurance companies. We know how to fight for consumers’ rights and know how to hold negligent professionals accountable. We investigate claims on a case by case basis. We do not file “frivolous lawsuits.” This means that we never accept a case without knowing, before filing suit, that the evidence establishes both negligence and damages flowing from that negligence. We consult with experts in the field of practice to make sure there is a solid basis for making the claim. As a result of doing vigorous investigation and obtaining opinions from consulting experts, we weed out the frivolous cases and turn down many potential clients who fail our rigorous standards for accepting such cases.

Call Bird, Jacobsen & Stevens for a free consultation regarding concerns you may have about professional negligence.