Judge Silver discusses medical malpractice at Columbian Lawyers Meeting

September 11, 2015 By Rob Abruzzese Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The Columbian Lawyers Association of Brooklyn, with President RoseAnn C. Branda, hosted Hon. George J. Silver at its first meeting of the legal season on Tuesday. Eagle photos by Rob Abruzzese

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The Columbian Lawyers Association of Brooklyn hosted its first Continuing Legal Education (CLE) meeting since the summer break at the Rex Manor in Dyker Heights on Sept. 8. The guest speaker was Hon. George Silver, whose speech was titled “Everything You Wanted to Know About Effective Medical Malpractice Settlement Techniques But Were Afraid to Ask.”

“We were lucky enough to have an incredible speaker and I’m so thrilled that he accepted our invitation to speak at our back-to-school event,” said the association’s president, RoseAnn C. Branda. “Judge Silver has an incredible amount of experience in this field and is such an entertaining speaker.”

Judge Silver admitted that it is an incredibly difficult area of the law that is only becoming trickier to navigate as medicine becomes increasingly complicated. He even predicted that in the future there will be more medical malpractice cases that go to mediation as it becomes harder to find good lawyers to try cases.

“I’ll be really blunt; it has gotten so expensive to try medical malpractice and so expensive to defend it that young lawyers are not getting an opportunity to try cases because carriers are not allowing them to do it,” Silver said. “I see in a few years, I hope I’m wrong, you’re not going to have as many lawyers capable of trying these cases.”

Silver said that on the bright side, as a judge, medical malpractice cases are some of the easier cases because the lawyers trying them tend to be very experienced in the field.

The majority of the CLE was focused on offering tips for lawyers who take on medical malpractice cases. Silver’s top tip: Know the case inside and out.

“The worst thing lawyers can do when I ask what their case is about is to say, ‘Judge that’s not my file,’ and I always say to them, ‘Well this isn’t my courthouse, but I know where the bathrooms are,’” Silver said. “But if you know your case and show that you’re willing to work hard on it, I’m willing to work hard to try to resolve it.”

Silver also noted that lawyers should not be afraid to reach out to the hospital or doctors involved in the case in an attempt to settle it.

“It’s not a weakness to call up,” Silver said. “If you have a good case, you don’t have to be afraid of your case. You don’t have to be afraid to call up the hospital or call up the doctor and say, ‘Let’s see if we can bring this in to try to resolve it.’ It used to be a sign of weakness to call in because there was something wrong with your case, but that’s not how it is anymore.”

The Columbian Lawyers Association’s next meeting will take place on Oct. 6 at the Rex Manor with guest speaker Carolyn Genovesi. Her topic: “The Grievance Process.”

The association will also be taking part in the Brooklyn Columbus Day Parade on Oct. 10 with Judge Patricia DiMango as one of the grand marshals. For Italian Heritage Month, the association will host, “A Taste of Italy” at Ponte Vecchio in Bay Ridge on Oct. 26.