The birds knew better. They left ahead the storm. Along with the strange Saturday afternoon cloud formations pushing downriver, this was our prelude to Irma: lifeless air, unadorned with the songs that usually come at the end of a long, hot day. The anti-Opener.

Living near the Everglades, it is easy to imagine the natural world reclaiming what we built. Dragging us back into the primordial ooze of mangrove hammocks and swamp bogs from which we crawled so long ago.

By the time the birds returned, they were greeted by the angry growl from a chorus of gas generators keeping some appliances running in the heat. It was then I realized the birds weren’t singing for us – they were communicating with each other and would be as frustrated as the generator army waging this war against the natural elements.

This time, I think I’ll add the words from one of Florida’s treasured songwriters. I saw JJ Grey and Mofro at the foot of the Punta Gorda bridge during the Big Orange Music Festival a few years back. It was ground zero for Hurricane Ian’s eye, complete with Jim Cantore broadcasting a stone’s throw away from the stage.

I felt the wind blow in
I felt the rain come down
I felt the peace within
That can never be without… ride on
Ride on, ride on, ride on

JJ Grey & Mofro, The Hurricane

The post The Hurricane appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

The post December 21, 2017 appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

Last year’s decision overturning the compensatory damage limits in Florida Medical Malpractice Cases

The post November 14, 2017 appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

The post November 6, 2017 appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

So, in Lee County, we held pretrial conferences a week after Hurricane Irma for the docket starting next month. We’ve mostly lost power (a/c, lights, etc.) and those won’t return to most of us until next week according to FPL. I’d taken extra time and a rare cold shower to fake being presentable. It apparently fooled everyone. I left the Courthouse immediately to resume my new job foraging for gas and ice – the new currency in our disaster economy.

This particular judge is relatively new to bench and her natural disposition could fairly be described as “hard case”. Even so, she handled this docket and all the zombified lawyers in front of her with courtesy, respect and patience. It was yet another display of the best of our qualities: everyone doing their best to meet their duties and helping others out where they can. If she’d barely scratched the surface of any of our psyches, she would have found a soft mass of foul pudding. We all feel it after a week in the sweltering heat without relief. The boredom and restlessness of hot, breezeless nights. The punishing drudgery of keeping generators running and ice from melting during the day.

It is in our best nature to persist. We will overcome – even this.

The post Persistence appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

Living near the Everglades, it is easy to imagine the natural world reclaiming what we built. Dragging us back into the primordial ooze of mangrove hammocks and swamp bogs from which we crawled so long ago.

By the time the birds returned, they were greeted by the angry growl from a chorus of gas generators keeping some appliances running in the heat. It was then I realized the birds weren’t singing for us – they were communicating with each other and would be as frustrated as the generator army waging this war against the natural elements.

The post Hurricane Irma appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

The post September 11, 2017: Hurricane Irma appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

The post May 31, 2017 appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

When I started practicing law in 1988, there was only one advertiser in town. His office was in Hollywood, Florida and his tag line was, “the light is always on”. I used to think about the abuse his cleaning staff may have endured for forgetting not to turn the light off at night. Later, other local lawyers picked up that beat. Before the Bar got around to writing rules to govern ads, I can remember one particular fellow who filmed himself being interviewed dramatically outside the Broward County Courthouse by a fake newsperson (the microphone emblazoned with a big W followed by his initials). When I was in law school in Virginia, I remember seeing an ad in Maryland during which a person crawled from highway wreckage to a phone booth (yes, they really did exist). The tag was, “If you have a dime, you have a lawyer”.

I left my Father’s practice in 1995, opening my own office in Fort Myers, Florida. We continued to work complex cases together over the years, all over the State. The only thing he ever asked me once I was on my own was not to advertise. I’d spent enough time working with him in the old fashioned way to understand that he meant it. I could sense what it would mean to him if I wasn’t able to honor the promise.

We’re launching updates to the website soon, including a series of videos for the YouTube channel the developers insisted we create. The video process gave me the opportunity to reflect on the work I did with my Father and the work I’ve done on my own. It was difficult, trying to cut clips that didn’t reek of what he used to derisively call “champerty and barretry”. I felt self conscious throughout, trying to navigate my way through the work of a lifetime (two, in fact) without wandering over the edge into advertising. Even relatively innocuous stories that certainly came nowhere near Bar Rule offense and may fall short of shilling – but clearly approaching self-promotion by any other name – felt like a breach of my promise to my Father.

But he was always  the first to insist that I be my own man and stand on my own merits. So I assume he’ll cut me slack in that regard.

I was driving around town the other day and passed a billboard. Smiling down at me from above was the giant photo-shopped figure of a lawyer (who I know) naked save for bikini brief lying on a beach somewhere. They don’t make a tag line capable of overcoming that kind of judgment. Merits speak for themselves.

Thanks Dad.

The post But, Wait! There’s More!! appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.

Earlier on this blog, we explored the roots of a local public hospital. See, the January 9, 16 and 23rd blog posts on this blog (Daily and Weekly).

We also explored the same public hospital’s public relations campaign and name change following a string of penalties ($2.4 million in 2016 and $2.9 million in 2014) with licensing agencies. See, 1/4, 1/3 blog posts. These Medicare penalties are a part of the ACA’s cost reduction efforts that focus on avoidable medical errors as a driver of healthcare costs.

By changing the name of the hospital system from “Lee Memorial” to “Lee Health”, the governmental entity shifts the focus away from the century old hospital that started the monopoly to the physicians offices and practices that the system consumed over the last ten years. Patients still do not seem to know that when they are walking into what was once their private doctors’ offices, they are now in the hands of government supervised healthcare.

Bureaucracy – particularly political bureaucracy – is a stubborn thing. It’s instincts for self-preservation and secrecy are historically verifiable. In the next series of posts, I will discuss cases in which I brought light to the secretive world of medical “peer review” and “sentinel event reporting” at our local public hospital. The palace intrigue and legal maneuvering used to prevent the public from knowing about dangers posed to patients from substandard care are a lesson in how to fix the broken system.

Change of name is window dressing – a PR stunt more than an effort to improve patient care. It is not enough for the Lee Memorial Health government behemoth to operate a monopoly on local healthcare. It is not even enough for them to benefit from the rules of secrecy and confidentiality afforded to private hospitals. It is not even enough that they wield the power of taxation and the political weight of the Government. It’s not even enough that they have morphed into the largest employer in Lee County. In addition to all of these privileges, the public servants at the hospital insist on the right to insist on public relations machinations – name changes, advertising campaigns and slick productions designed to lull the citizens of the county into the belief that their “not for profit” hospitals are something they are not.

Serious personal injuries require the background, knowledge and skill of a lawyer intimately familiar with the institutions responsible for your health. Don’t sell yourself short.

The post Lee Memorial or Lee Health? appeared first on The Thompson Law Firm.