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Welcome and thank you for joining me. I'm Gerry Oginski, a New York medical malpractice
and personal injury trial lawyer practicing law here in the state of New York. Today's
topic is a continuation in a series of videos on how lawsuits work. And we're now going
to continue as to what happens after the lawsuit has been started and the attorneys for the
doctor and the hospital have now served their answer on your attorney. What will happen
is that together with the answer, they will serve documents requesting a detailed itemized
listing and allegations against the doctor and hospital, that’s known as a demand for
a bill of particulars. And what your attorney will do is he will serve a response known
as a bill of particulars specifically detailing all of the allegations against the doctors
and hospitals so that the lawyers for the doctors and hospitals will know exactly what
your claim is and why, whether it's a failure to diagnose cancer, whether is an improperly
performed surgery, whatever the claim is, your attorney must now use that bill of particulars
to explain in detail what exactly the problem is and what specific injuries you have suffered
as a result of the wrongdoing. Only after your attorney has served that particular document
once the bill of particulars has been prepared and served on the lawyers for the doctor or
the hospital then the attorney can file a document known as a notice of medical malpractice
action, that is an indication to the court that the parties are ready to come in for
a scheduling conference known as a preliminary conference and depending upon which county
your lawsuit is taking place in, it may take a few months for your attorney to get notified
to come in for a scheduling conference. You don't have to appear, your attorney has to
appear as well as the attorneys representing the doctor and the hospital. So on the date
that your attorney goes in for scheduling conference, dates will be set by the court
as to when documents have to be exchanged and when depositions will take place. Now
for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term deposition it basically means a question
and answer session that you have to provide in your attorney’s office and it's sworn
testimony and a court reporter is present to take down your questions and answers as
well as the same for the doctors and hospitals that you have sued. So that's important to
put down in the scheduling order so that we know when these things will take place. And
your attorney will usually notify you when that occurs and after the conference is held
the attorney will tell you when your deposition is scheduled to take place. Now, a lot goes
on before your deposition will go forward. Many times clients will call an attorney wondering
what's going on after the lawsuit has happened. Well often times the attorney does not let
the client know all the behind the scenes work that goes on leading up to the deposition
and there's a lot of paperwork that has be exchanged. Most importantly the attorney must
provide the lawyers for the doctors or hospital what's known as authorizations which are permission
slips that will allow the lawyers to get copies of all your medical records. In addition your
lawyer will also have to provide copies of medical records that he has already obtained
to the lawyers for the doctors and the hospital. And this allows the attorneys the opportunity
to review the records to see for themselves what went on in your case and often times
since they don't rely on a plaintiff's attorney, which means an attorney representing an injured
victim, to provide them with accurate records, they will then go out and take your permission
slips and get your records directly from the doctor or the hospital themselves. Now, if
you remember in one of my other video tips when we went through how your attorney evaluates
your case we talked about the length of time is takes to get your own medical records.
Well, now its going to take the lawyers for the doctors and the hospital the same length
of time, if not longer, to obtain all of your records because first they must wait for the
permission slips from you, then they have to process the paperwork, put cover letters
with each one and then send them out to the doctors and the hospitals requesting your
records. Typically what will happen is the doctors will send what’s called a fee letter.
They send a letter back to the lawyer or the law firm saying, we'll be happy to provide
copies of these records to you provided you pay us x dollars for copying costs. So now
the attorney and the law firm must write a check to the doctor's office, they will send
the check to the doctor and now additional time will go by before the records are actually
forwarded and furnished to the attorney. Once all of those steps have been completed and
the attorney for the doctor or hospital has all of your medical records, then we can go
forward with your deposition. Sometimes the scheduling of the deposition has to be put
off or adjourned to allow the attorney for the doctor or hospital to get all the records.
And that's it for today's topic on setting up a discovery schedule with the court and
I want to thank you for joining me on this continuing topic on how lawsuits in New York
work. I hope you'll join me for the next video tip which is what happens when you come up
for your deposition? What is it? How does it work? What does it mean? I'm Gerry Oginski,
thank you for joining me. Have a great day.