Attorney pays for cases, gets wrist slapped

Attorney Harold Meyerson was punished recently by the lawyers’ Department Disciplinary Committee.

He received a "public censure." This is the lightest form of public punishment that an attorney can receive. It means that the public can hear about it and say "tsk, tsk" or "shame, shame." Lighter punishments than public censure are private censure and admonishment. On the "heavier" side are license suspensions and disbarment, which interrupt the attorney’s right to practice law.

Meyerson’s misconduct occurred during a five-month period of time in the early part of 2003. During that time, his solo practice consisted of a high volume of personal injury matters, matrimonial and criminal defense cases, and general business litigation.

He admitted that he paid Emil Izrailov a sum of money for referring clients to him who had been involved in motor vehicle accidents and who were receiving treatment from I.K. Medical, PC, a clinic run by Izrailov.

He paid Izrailov’s clinic $800 for a narrative medical report of any patient referred to him by the clinic whom he accepted as a client. These reports were prepared by a physician and described the client’s injuries, related those injuries to the accident, and set forth the course of treatment and prognosis.

Meyerson testified that providing these reports to the insurance carrier in the early stages of settlement negotiation process usually resulted in early and favorable results for his clients. He also stated that if he referred any client to the clinic, there was no charge for the narrative medical report.

Between February and June 2003, Meyerson paid for approximately eleven narrative reports and referred two clients to the clinic who were not charged when he ordered their narrative reports. Two of the 11 clients for whom Meyerson purchased narrative reports did not continue treatment with Izrailov and decided against pursuing lawsuits. Izrailov refunded the cost of those reports.

Meyerson denied paying Izrailov any money other than for the cost of the reports and believed that it would be necessary to purchase these reports at some point in the litigation in order to pursue settlement negotiations on behalf of his clients. While acknowledging that this type of arrangement could be viewed as an improper exchange, he claimed not to appreciate that fact at the time. In fact, he believed it was beneficial to his existing clients because they would receive free narrative reports if he referred them for treatment to one of Izrailov’s clinics. During the 5 month period in question, he estimated that he was retained by approximately 30 patients referred by Izrailov. He resigned from these cases after his arrest to avoid what he believed to be a potential conflict of interest.

The Disciplinary Panel noted that, unlike those situations where attorneys paid money to the solicitor for each client referred, Meyerson agreed to purchase a narrative report in exchange for each referral that resulted in his retention. The Panel went on to note that the "evidence is compelling that the clients needed these reports in order to pursue their claims and would, in any event, have had to purchase them from another provider, if not Izrailov."

Significantly, the Panel found that the $800 paid for each report was "the market price for such reports at the time." Noting the "unusual aspects" of this arrangement, including the fact that these reports would be provided free of charge if an existing client sought treatment from Izrailov’s clinic, thus benefitting the client, the Panel found Meyerson’s arrangement to be qualitatively different from the classic solicitation scenario.

While Meyerson, a 61-year old experienced attorney should have known that his arrangement with the clinic for client referrals under the apparent guise of paying for narrative reports was unethical and illegal, he expressed genuine remorse for his misconduct and testified that he has essentially stopped practicing law until the conclusion of these proceedings.

The Panel also said: Moreover, this matter is distinguishable from Matter of Ehrlich, [252 AD2d 73 (1998)], where the attorney paid a hospital employee to solicit clients for him by handing out Ehrlich’s business card to patients. The respondent in Ehrlich obtained 30 clients over a two-year period as a result of this arrangement and terminated the scheme because of the "low monetary value of the cases." In confirming the recommendations of a three-month suspension, we noted that Ehrlich only ended his scheme because it was unprofitable, only began cooperating after being caught, and nearly three dozen instances of solicitation were involved during the two-year period.

Here, Meyerson testified that he did not think he was harming his clients by paying for the narrative reports that he ultimately needed in order to settle their claims expeditiously, and the Hearing Panel found he had provided truthful testimony.

Meyerson got off easy. What he did was not "qualitatively different from the classic solicitation scenario." Meyerson probably got a light punishment because of his age and clean record; also he hired as his attorney a former employee of the lawyers’ Department Disciplinary Committee. He was also smart in admitting his misconduct and withdrawing from the improperly obtained cases.

I believe the Panel was incorrect in finding that $800 was the usual price for narrative medical reports, especially since doctors usually prepare them anyway, and send them to automobile insurance carriers at no charge in order to be paid for treating car accident victims. Literally, all that Izrailov’s clinic had to do was change the name of the recipient of the report – hardly worth $800. And $800 is rather high for any medical reports, they tend to go for $300 to $500, although they can cost as much as $1,000 for a report by a medical specialist.

And what about the business of refunding the price of the report for clients who dropped their cases? That’s a dead-on admission that the reports were over-paid for to buy clients, otherwise, if Izrailov’s clinic did $800 worth of work producing a narrative report, why refund the money?

If you're intersted in lawyer misdeeds, you may want to go to my web site www.GreatLegalBooks.com and order my free book:  "Good Lawyers Don't Call You First."  Also, keep checking this blog for future reports on lawyers who get caught with their hands in the cookie jar.  They give the legal profession a bad name.