Access To Justice

If I were in a self-help group, I’d start my story by saying: “My Name is Jim Sokolove, and I’m an ambulance chaser.   What’s worse, I’m proud of it.”

We all know that lawyers are often the butt of jokes for being sleazy.  In fact, even in a profession that has some of the lowest approval numbers among the public, personal injury attorneys—so-called “ambulance chasers”—stand out as particularly worthy of scorn.

So  you might think it’s odd to be proud of being called an ambulance chaser.  But I mean it.  I’m proud of that moniker.  Let me explain.

I started a law firm that specializes in personal injury law, and we get our clients by advertising to people who may have been hurt as the result of someone else’s negligence.

For more than thirty years, my firm and our co-counsel have helped hundreds of thousands of people who have been harmed as a result of someone else’s negligence.  It’s amazingly rewarding work, and I consider myself lucky to have made it my business to help people.  Along the way, we’ve helped to bring about some changes for the better in society.

Cars have seatbelts, laws require bike helmets, and companies dispose of toxic waste properly all because we and our fellow ambulance chasers stood up to fight for people who had been injured.  You have ambulance chasers to thank for laws requiring truth in advertising for pharmaceuticals, for disclosing toxic chemicals like asbestos at job sites, and for exposing the dangers of using tobacco.

We’ve helped to bring people together who have been victims of the same kinds of injuries.  We run online web resource centers for victims of birth injuries, asbestos-related lung cancer, and medical malpractice, where those who have been injured can form a community, share their stories and support one another.

And we are constantly identifying areas where people are being injured, and may not know about their legal rights.  For example, in the past six months, we’ve launched consumer hotlines informing people about the potential dangers associated with denture creams, and toxic building materials imported from China.  We never stop looking for corporations who are looking to make a quick buck by skimping on the safety of consumers.

Last winter, we convened a meeting of the leading attorneys in the financial services space to consider how the legal rights of those on Main Street have been devastated by the fraud and abuse on Wall Street.  In addition, we’re taking lots of cases related to wage-and-hour abuses caused by companies who are tightening their belts on the back of their employees.

We do all of this at a time when the legal industry is under enormous pressure.  To be sure, there’s still unmet demand.  In fact, nearly 80 percent of the civil legal needs of the low-income individuals and 60 percent of middle-income households remain unmet.  In the most legally advanced country in the world, that’s simply unacceptable.

So I don’t shy away from the label ambulance chaser.  In fact, to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Henry V: “If it is a sin to be an ambulance chaser…I am the most offending soul alive.”  As I said in one of my first television ads: “I’m attorney Jim Sokolove, and I help people who’ve been injured get the money they deserve.”

I’ve been doing it for more than 30 years.  And I’m going to keep at it, so long as there are people who need my help.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is teaming up with private agencies to make things a lot more clear for expecting mothers, with a brand new program called the Medication Exposure in Pregnancy Risk Evaluation Program or MEPREP.

A Dec. 30, 2009 FDA news release reveals that the federal agency is going to work with several other groups including Kaiser Permanente, Vanderbilt University, and the HMO Research Network Center for Education and Research in Therapeutics (CERT).

The result? More about the risks of using specific drugs during pregnancy.

Margaret Hamburg, M.D., Commissioner of Food and Drugs, has stated that MEPREP will “guide regulatory policy and influence medical practice.”

Prior to this new program, the FDA relied on a “grade” system for determining the risks of various pharmaceuticals for pregnant women. This grading system often left many questions about whether a medication represented an acceptable risk for any given patient.

Grassroots pregnancy advocacy groups are duly positive about the FDA decision.

“It needs to be done,” posted jeannesager on Jan. 4, on the parent advocate blog StrollerDerby, dubbed ‘The Mother of All Parenting Blogs.’

Other big advocacy blogs are looking forward to the change, as are some of the main participants.

Vanderbilt online sources show that William Cooper, M.D., M.P.H., professor of Pediatrics, has been selected as the principal investigator representing the school’s involvement in the program.

“This [MEPREP] will allow us to look at exposures we would never have been able to study before,” said Cooper in December, according to the internal news release.

Reports also quote Gerald Dal Pan, M.D., director of the Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, saying that MEPREP will “provide valuable information for physicians and patients” about using various drugs during pregnancy.

The MEPREP program is a valuable New Year’s present to American families. The hope is that this new initiative will make talking to doctors about drug regimens for expecting and new mothers more concrete, and help to prevent some of the range of birth injuries and birth defects that can be caused by side effects of some pharmaceuticals.

Learn more about birth-related  injuries at our ChildRC Blog.

News developments that we’ll be watching at Sokolove Law:

The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to study how medications taken in pregnancy affect mothers and their unborn children, according to a report from Reuters. The new study will be called the Medication Exposure in Pregnancy Risk Evaluation Program. Two-thirds of mothers-to-be have used at least one prescription drug during pregnancy, according to the FDA. There are few clinical trials that test the safety of medications in pregnancy due to concerns about the health of the mother and child.

A class-action lawsuit filed in Manhattan’s Federal District Court last week alleges that some New York debt collectors are using “fraudulent documents to surreptitiously win court judgments – all without the debtors’ knowledge,” writes The New York Times. The paper reports that use of the practice has been spurred by the recession and the rise in consumer debt actions.

Recent Recalls

General Motors announced a January recall of 22,000 Chevrolet Corvettes after finding problems with their removable roof system, writes The Burlington County Times. The recall applies to 2005-07 model year Corvettes and Corvette Z06 models. According to the article, GM told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that the adhesive between the roof panel and the frame may separate, allowing the roof to come off while driving and posing an accident risk. GM will install a redesigned roof panel as a result. The automaker issued a similar recall in 2006.

Make personal safety one of your resolutions in the New Year. As always, Sokolove Law is here to help.

News developments that we’ll be watching at Sokolove Law:

Radiation from computerized tomography or CT scans performed in 2007 will cause an estimated 29,000 cancers that will result in the deaths of 15,000 Americans, warns a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Two-thirds of the projected cancers will occur in women, one-third in people ages 35-54 at the time of their CT, and 15 percent in children or teens, according to a Reuters article. About 70 million CT scans were done on Americans in 2007.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recalled millions of Roman shades and blinds today after receiving reports of several strangulation deaths in young children. CPSC has received reports of five deaths and 16 near strangulations, since 2006, in Roman shades, and three deaths, since 2001, in roll-up blinds. The CPSC and the Window Covering Safety Council are working to provide repair kits for the recalled shades, which were sold by retailers including Wal-Mart, Pottery Barn, Ace Hardware, West Elm, The Land of Nod, and JCPenney.

New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton will carry the ball in a class-action lawsuit against Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co. Ltd., says a blog post at The Times-Picayune. Knauf is a Chinese company that made drywall that is believed to be corroding homes and making people sick. Payton, the suit’s lead plaintiff, was one of the first in Louisiana to link media reports of defective Chinese drywall to his family’s health problems and the failure of electrical and other equipment in his home. It is estimated that at least 550 million pounds of Chinese drywall has been imported into the United States since 2006 — enough to build 60,000 average-size homes.

Resolving Paxil lawsuits has cost GlaxoSmithKline almost $1 billion, according to a Bloomberg News report that cites court records and people familiar with the cases. This figure includes $390 million to settle suicide or attempted suicide cases linked to the anti-depressant drug, and $200 million to settle Paxil addiction and birth-defect cases. Bloomberg says Glaxo declined to confirm the $1 billion figure. Paxil went on the market in 1993.

Nursing home administrators in Illinois may soon face tougher disciplinary sanctions in cases of patient harm in their facilities as state officials push to improve elder safety. The Chicago Tribune writes that administrators are now seldom punished by the state entity charged with licensing them and other professional nursing home staff, despite reports of elder abuse.

Keep those you love protected from harm. At Sokolove Law, we’re here to help.

A new study by the Center for Disease Control has found a link between common antibiotics and birth defects.

The study is the first large study of antibiotic use by pregnant women, and it found that two types of antibiotics were linked with a higher risk for several birth defects: nitrofurantoins and sulfonamides, sometimes called “sulfa drugs,” which are prescribed for urinary tract and other infections. It was the first time an association had been seen between urinary tract treatments and birth defects. What’s worse is that the antibiotics in question pre-date the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and are therefore not subject to the same rigorous review used for newer antibiotics.

The full results of the study are published in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (subscription required).

Bacterial infections can cause health problems for a fetus say medical experts, and it is not uncommon for women to be treated for urinary tract infections during pregnancy, but researchers urged women to consult carefully with their doctors before taking antibiotics.

According to the Associated Press, the study found that:

“Birth defects linked to sulfa drugs included rare brain and heart problems, and shortened limbs. Those linked to nitrofurantoins (ny-troh-fyoor-AN’-toyns) included heart problems and cleft palate. The drugs seemed to double or triple the risk, depending on the defect.”

The study did find that penicillin appears to be the safest antibiotic for use during pregnancy.

According to the AP, the FDA has has proposed changes to prescription drug labeling that would require more complete information for women of childbearing age, pregnant women and those who breastfeed. As always with potentially dangerous drugs the questions comes down to whether patients were adequately warned about potential negative side effects.

For more information on birth defects, visit the CDC. For information on your legal rights related to dangerous drugs, visit our website.