Trial Takes Hard Look at a Personal-Injury Law Firm
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Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have said from the beginning that the criminal trial of a prominent lawyer and some of his colleagues on charges of wholesale corruption would provide an unsavory glimpse behind the curtains of a large personal-injury law firm. In a week of testimony in the case of the lawyer, Morris J. Eisen, two other lawyers from his firm, their office manager and three private investigators, the jury has become acquainted with such things as brown-bag payoffs to a witness and a shrunken ruler used to exaggerate the size of photographed potholes. Personal-injury lawyers, who usually take cases with a promise of a cut of any of aplaintiff’s winnings, have long been subject to accusations of “ambulance chasing” and worse. The prosecutor in the Eisen case, Jerome C. Roth, said Mr. Eisen’s firm, Morris Eisen P.C., tested the limits of impropriety. Mr. Roth told the jurors the Eisen firm’s lawyers “were really limited only by their own imaginations” as they routinely made up injuries, fabricated evidence and bought false testimony in personal-injury cases. Stephen DiJoseph, the former managing attorney of the 45-lawyer firm, testified that the firm’s top lawyer, Mr. Eisen, personally ordered evidence to be faked and once said he would “take care” of getting a favorable ruling from a Bronx judge. The lawyers’ lawyers have begun a blistering counterattack. They say it was the Government lawyers, not the Eisen lawyers, who really showed how unscrupulous lawyers can be. The say they will show the jury how the prosecutors threatened witnesses, encouraged others to lie and promised corrupt people — like Mr. DiJoseph, they say — immunity from prosecution if they would help give a black eye to Mr. Eisen in particular, and plaintiffs’ lawers in general. Mr. Eisen’s lawyer, James M. LaRosa, said the prosecutors were being used by New York City and insurance companies, because they want to stop paying big damage awards to injured people. He said they want to send a chill through the ranks of the lawyers who represent accident victims. “This case sends a message: ‘Don’t win too much money and don’t fight too hard against us,’ ” Mr. LaRosa said. Some lawyers say charges of corruption tar all lawyers in the field. “If you have a few that do things that seem outrageous,” said Victor Schwartz, a national expert on personal-injury law, “that makes people think that all plaintiff’s lawyers do it.” The Insurance Information Institute, an industry group, estimates that as much as $8.5 billion is paid out annually across the country on fraudulent claims that are orchestrated by dishonest lawyers and other professionals. The prosecution in the Eisen case has done its best to emphasize the outrageous. The Eisen lawyers, according to prosecutors’ filings, kept blank doctors’ stationery in their offices so they could write their own medical reports to order. On Friday, Mr. DiJoseph quoted Mr. Eisen as saying that he frequently hired a particular engineer as an expert witness because the man would “say anything we want him to say for the right amount of money.” 2 Accidents, 1 Witness More : query.nytimes.com |