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Hi everyone.

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In this talk, I wanna take you basically

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through the lit litigation process and what happens

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and what you need to do if you get named in a lawsuit.

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So the first, uh, piece of this is that in some fashion,

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you will probably receive a summons or the complaint.

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Um, oftentimes I will say, as lawyers, we will try to, uh,

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know beforehand who your, uh, insurance company is.

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And, um, I really do try not

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to have people served individually, kind of, you know,

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somebody jumping out from the bushes.

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And so we'll ask your attorney if they will accept service,

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and typically they, they will.

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The most important thing for you to understand if you do get

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sued, uh,

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and a complaint is served upon you, is

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that the clock is running.

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There are very, uh, strict deadlines that start to apply

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as soon as you are served,

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and that involves you knowing that you need

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to jump on this immediately and don't delay.

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I've had cases where, you know,

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doctors will shove this in a desk drawer

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and say, oh, I'll deal with it later.

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That's not a good thing to do.

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So your crc, what do you do now?

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You wanna contact your risk manager, your practice manager.

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You wanna call your insurance company,

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whatever is your next line and let them know.

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Get them a copy of the complaint,

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and then you can kind of sit back typically a little bit,

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because what's gonna happen is this is the part

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where they will assign an attorney for you

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and then that attorney will take over, is responsible

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for the deadlines and getting what they need, um, to,

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to move forward with defending you.

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Um, but what, here, there are a couple things

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that you need to know.

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You need to, anything that you have re relevant

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to this case, to the case that you're being sued about,

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you need to gather all the information, have it ready,

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have it ready to give to your lawyer.

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They'll tell you typically what they want,

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but sometimes if you know ahead of time,

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make sure you've got it gathered.

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And then do not, whatever you do,

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do not destroy any evidence.

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Um, it's, it's kind of wild,

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but we typically have a way of, of finding

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that out and it's not a good look.

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So don't destroy any evidence.

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Listen to what your lawyer, uh, tells you to do

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and comply with that and, and,

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and just start to move forward.