Week 1

Hello Readers,

In this week’s blog, I started diving deeper into different kinds of research papers and law journals that discuss and explain the actual impact of New York’s medical malpractice sliding scale retainer. I’ve been focused explicitly on how New York’s sliding scale retainer affects the behavior of attorneys, the outcomes of patients, and the overall accessibility of legal representation and aid for malpractice victims.

I also began reaching out to local attorneys to set up interviews. One attorney responded with interest, and we’ve scheduled a conversation for next week. I’m hoping to learn how attorneys decide whether or not to take a malpractice case, and how the sliding scale factors into that decision.

In the coming weeks, I will continue reviewing non-attorney sources and collecting more opinions from legal and non-legal experts. I’m especially interested in learning how people perceive the system’s fairness and whether they think it truly balances the interests of doctors and patients.

Lastly, I want to correct a mistake I made in my first blog post. New York’s sliding-scale retainer fee is only reduced to 10% when a case is worth over $1,250,000 and $1,000,000.

Thank you for reading, and stay tuned for more updates as I continue this research!

-Matt Torgan