The Firm
Over the last 30 years, powerhouse personal injury firm Finz & Finz has obtained record-breaking verdicts and settlements for accident victims throughout New York State. The firm, which handles accident cases ranging from product liability to construction disasters, is acutely aware of how critical expert witness testimony can be—particularly in medical malpractice matters. But the number of doctors that do medico-legal work is limited, and the number of those who do plaintiff work is even smaller.
The Challenge
Finz & Finz’s in-house Legal Nurse Consultant, Lisa Van Essendelft, used to spend countless hours looking for experts to consult and testify on the firm’s medical malpractice cases. “I used resources on the internet, searched court cases, and even made cold calls to physicians’ offices during my searches. It took too much of my time away from actually working on my cases.” Fed up with wasting hours on fruitless searches, the firm turned to Expert Institute for help.
The Solution
With help from Expert Institute, the firm was able to engage some of the finest experts across the country on their toughest cases. “Expert Institute freed me up time to work on my cases and took away the angst of finding an expert, chasing them down for their CV, and negotiating their fees,” said Ms. Van Essendelft.
Thrilled with their expert referrals, Finz & Finz started working with Expert Institute on a case-by-case basis. The firm quickly took advantage of our Case Clinics, which allow attorneys to connect with our physicians on-demand to decode medical files and develop creative litigation strategies. The firm was blown away by the thorough medical analyses they received from our physicians. “The professionalism that the entire company possesses is an absolute asset to our firm.”
The Results
The experts that Expert Institute provided directly impacted several of the firm’s successes. Expert Institute connected Finz & Finz with experts who helped secure a $9.2 million settlement for a woman who suffered severe brain damage secondary to malnutrition, a $9.7 million settlement for an infant that lost his intestines as a result of a failure to diagnose NEC, a $3 million settlement for a woman who suffered a massive stroke as a result of her neurologist’s failure to diagnose Moya-Moya disease.
“The thought of going back to the old way of getting experts causes me to have anxiety! I was never this successful finding high-quality experts before, and the amount of time I have gained to work on my files is priceless!”