I love representing plaintiffs in medical malpractice and personal injury cases. I’m guessing many of you do too. That said, most lawyers choose not to do the work we do. In fact, most lawyers find our business model an anathema: they have no desire to take the financial risks and live with the financial uncertainty we live with. Moreover, most lawyers would abhor being seen by some as “ambulance chasers” or greedy trial lawyers. So why do we do this work? Many of us enjoy the freedom from the tyranny of the billable hour. Those of us who practice in solo or small firm settings are our own bosses: we answer to our clients, not to a corporate hierarchy. As personal injury lawyers we have the luxury of choosing our clients and cases. If we’re lucky, we get to be proactive in our cases, gathering proof through the tools of discovery. Building our cases has us exercising the trial lawyering skills we began to learn in law school and hone through years of practice. Employing this skill set, we call tortfeasors to account in depositions and trial; we go toe to toe with experts; and we use our verbal and written skills to persuade opposing counsel, adjusters, mediators, judges and juries.

“It’s not fair.” It’s a phrase we begin to hear from young children almost as soon as they become social beings. The notion that the world should be fair seems to be encoded in our DNA. I recently read an essay titled “The Case for Ambulance Chasing Lawyers”¹ arguing that unfairness is a prominent feature of life at this moment in American history, including for those who have been privileged to avoid much unfairness in the past. All but the very wealthiest among us encounter unfair systems we can’t change on a daily basis.

The 2023-2024 NHAJ Board of Governors met for the first time in August. We have four new members of the Board of Governors, all of whom have been practicing for less than 10 years. That brings the total number of early career Board members to 12. As noted in my first message, my goal as President is to find ways to engage more new lawyers in NHAJ. With that in mind, at our first Board of Governors’ meeting we asked our early career Board members what they consider most attractive and beneficial about their membership in NHAJ.

I am pleased to be taking on the role of President of the New Hampshire Association for Justice at this time. The association is healthy and vibrant thanks to the work of our Executive Director Marissa Chase, Operations Manager Lisa Gowern, and the leadership of our last several presidents: Jared Bedrick, John Kenison, Kristin Ross, and Holly Haines. We are in a position to think proactively about ways to further NHAJ’s mission of increasing access to justice and helping our clients hold those who cause harm accountable.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine published a study indicating that as many as 98,000 hospitalized Americans died annually from medical errors (Kohn, Linda, and Corrigan, Janet To Err is Human; Building a Safer Health System, (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1999)).

Since development of the Pap smear by Dr. Papanicolaou in the 1940’s, cervical cytology screening has become the mainstay for early detection of cervical cancer. It has led to a dramatic reduction in deaths from cervical cancer.

Medical negligence cases are costly and difficult undertakings. Generally, you will be facing capable defense counsel, top notch defense experts, intelligent and articulate defendants, vast defense resources, and a hardened and skeptical insurer that will be looking for any weaknesses in your case. Those factors, along with the fact that the likely issues of the litigation will concern topics that the defendants and their experts know more about than you, can make these cases challenging.

THREE BAR MEMBERS contributed their considerable expertise in complex litigation and mediation to help New Hampshire Legal Assistance reach an accord with the state of New Hampshire that avoids a costly trial and obtains better access to dental care for NH families on Medicaid.