Week 0 - Introduction to the Project

Matt Torgan – Week 0

Hello Everyone!

Welcome to the first blog post of my Senior Project. My Name is Matt Torgan, and over the next couple of months, I will investigate New York’s Medical Malpractice Sliding scale retainer and how it has affected doctors, plaintiffs, and lawyers since its introduction in 1985. Through this series, I want to explore the intersections of law, finance, and healthcare while also shedding some light on the incredibly crucial aspect of the medical malpractice part of the law.

The sliding scale retainer ensures that lawyers cannot make more than 10% of the verdicts from medical malpractice cases to protect doctors from getting sued and losing too much money. However, this makes it harder for plaintiffs to find lawyers who will take medical malpractice cases, and it also may cause doctors to care less for patients, knowing that the retainer protects them.

I’ve always been interested in how legal systems might change to meet the demands of society, and the sliding scale retainer model caught my attention as a promising option to address the problems of getting access to good legal counsel in malpractice cases.

Pursuing trials for medical malpractice suits is known to be expensive and time-consuming for attorneys. The sliding scale retainer, which was incorporated to prevent “ambulance chasers,” is an alternative price structure that inhibits access to justice. 

You may be wondering what the actual effects of the sliding scale retainer are on New York Plaintiffs and their legal counsel. You may also be wondering in what ways can the Sliding Scale Retainer be altered to benefit attorneys, doctors, and those pursuing legal justice. These are the main questions that will guide my research.

For this project, I will work closely with expert attorneys, focusing their practice on medical malpractice. I will analyze primary and secondary documents, whether that be law journals or case studies that provide interviews or information on the topic. I will interview ordinary individuals to get other opinions on the topic.

I am so grateful to everyone coming along on this research “journey” into the heart of medical malpractice lawsuits. I am excited to explore the nuances of the legal system and the importance of fairness in the fight for justice.