About the Vaccine Court Lawyers
Regular reports are coming in about the vaccine court (here’s Left Brain/Right Brain on some expert witnesses and, if you’re in the mood for some Swiftian “monkey business” about what some proponents of a vaccine-autism link consider newsworthy research, go here). And, courtesy of the National Law Journal, here’s some background about some of the lawyers representing families in “vaccine court.”
The small Boston-based firm of Conway, Homer & Chin-Caplan has 1200 cases alleging that vaccines cause autism and some 200 other vaccine-injury cases. The five-lawyer firm has “transformed itself from the products liability firm” that once housed Jan Schlichtmann’s toxic tort case immortalized in the movie “A Civil Action“; Conway, Homer & Chin-Caplan has become “a prominent plaintiffs firm in the vaccine bar.” In 1986 Schlictmann famously represented eight Woburn, Massachusetts families against W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods over contamination of the Woburn City water supply. Schlichtmann left the firm in 1991 but many of the current partners worked for the firm while Schlichtmann was there. No surprise that his former firm is representing families who claim that their child became autistic from—was damaged by—a vaccine.
The fee rules for the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program apparently “make it hard for vaccine lawyers to stay solvent”:
The tax-funded vaccine compensation program, which was designed as a no-fault option for resolving vaccine injury claims, allows lawyers to collect fees for claims made “in good faith” and with “a reasonable basis,” whether they win or lose the case.
Yet because lawyers collect fees at the end of a case, work done in prior years is based on past billing rates that might be devalued by inflation.
“It’s a terrible business model for lawyers,” Conway said.
What’s more, the lawyer’s reimbursement for expert witnesses doesn’t include interest for the delay in payment and is frequently challenged by the government, Conway said.
Conway noted that the firm has yet to collect fees on one 15-year-old case.
Conway, Homer & Chin-Caplan represented Michelle Cedillo in “vaccine court” last June. In the current case, Williams Love O’Leary & Powers is representing William Mead (whose father is himself a lawyer) and Jordan King. Lawyer Tom Powers‘ biography notes that he focuses “on toxic tort litigation, including thimerosal and vaccine injuries and asbestos.”
From being called a “lifesaver” and a “giant leap for mankind,” vaccines are now on trial as the new asbestos. That’s some monkey business indeed.
Tags: , adults, asd, asperger, autism, autism blog, chemicals, damage, disabilities blog, Environment, Family, family blog, jan schlictmann, lawyer, monkeys, Parenting, pdd-nos, tort, Vaccines, w r graceRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Environment, Legal Issues, Movies, Vaccines
9 opinions for About the Vaccine Court Lawyers
Mom to Max
May 17, 2008 at 12:31 pm
oh my…i have been looking at autism blogs today and the vaccine controversy is still so much at the forefront. can we talk about our kids instead? :>)
Sullivan
May 17, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Given the number of delays in the Omnibus by the Petitioner’s side, this is a bit ironic.
Albert
May 17, 2008 at 2:26 pm
The article you linked to about the monkey study is brilliant.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/05/some_monkey_business_in_autism_research.php
Ms. Clark
May 17, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Oh, the pooor poooor anti-vaccine lawyers. Let’s cry them a river. Thomas Powers who has been doing a lot of the speaking for the PSC for this segment of the Omnibus is (so I hear) a billionaire. These people are getting fat off of tax payers in part by bringing some cases that have very little chance of winning based on shaky evidence. They still get paid unless someone can prove that a case was brought in bad faith. Being cynical, I think plenty of their cases are brought in solid-gold, greedy-to-the-core, 100% bad faith.
And Cliffy, and his two friends who are representing him pro bono, is due to submit something or other to the judge as of yesterday, I think. I suppose we may hear something about it from Kathleen next week.
Albert
May 17, 2008 at 5:02 pm
The author of the primate poster (not a paper, not a publication, a poster) is married to Dan Hollenbeck, with whom she founded the website fighting autism. They have also both been quite public about their faith in the vaccines cause autism theory, and their faith in the DAN! protocols. Hollenbeck writes for the site, Age of Autism, the site that pretends to be journalism but is just a club for like-minded anti-vaccine advocates. They do not even let dissenting opinions on their site. So much for journalism and good science. Amazing how junk science gets embraced uncritically by certain groups.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 17, 2008 at 5:48 pm
I just see an utter lack of ability to understand what is “research” and what is not. Anything with graphs, a few citations to scientific-looking journals, the proper structure and some data (it could be the work of word-processing monkeys)—-this gets called “research.”
Finding the reference to Jan Schichtmann was revealing—-there’s hope of making vaccine court the new Love Canal.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 17, 2008 at 7:30 pm
@Albert,
And he’s the Director of Information Technology for Thoughtful House Center for Children [source]
Emily
May 17, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Looks like quite a lot of people have a dog in this hunt, a dog carrying a large wad of cash.
Kristina Chew, PhD
May 17, 2008 at 11:34 pm
And: Laura Hewiston, author of the primate poster, and Dan Hollenbeck are on the Federal Register listing of litigants in the Autism Omnibus hearings at Vaccine Court (#437).
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