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How about this scenario. A new client comes in to probate a will. And during the course
of talking to the wife -- the husband died, during the course of talking to her -- you
learn that something horrible happened to her husband. Her husband bled to death. She
comes home one day from lunch and sees a trail of blood from her step all the way into the
bathroom. She opens up the bathroom door and she sees her husband on the bathroom floor
and there is blood everywhere. On the ceiling, on the walls, in a pool of blood on the floor.
It looks like a crime scene. Police come, ambulance comes, an autopsy is done. What
happened you ask? What happened was her husband was on dialysis and as a result of dialysis,
he needs to communicate. In other words, they put in a needle into the arm (it's called
a shunt) and that's what communicates between the artery and the vein. And in her husband's
case, what happened was the shunt ruptured. And he was in the bathroom trying to stem
the flow of blood but he didn't have the ability to do that, to do that. And as a result, he
died. Bled to death. So now you hear about this, you're going to go ahead and probate
the will. What do you do, as a trusts and estates attorney, when you now learn that
there may be some type of medical malpractice for the dialysis center leading to wrongful
death? What can you possibly tell this woman? How about this scenario. You're called to
the hospital to prepare the last will and testament of a woman who's dying. That's the
only information you're given. You arrive in the hospital and you are shocked to learn
that the woman who is dying is 40 years old. And during the course of your discussion with
her, you learn that she is dying of advanced metastatic breast cancer - stage 4, it's terminal.
You learn she has a young husband also 40 years old and she has 3 young children. And
now you're going ahead and preparing the documents for the will but you ask her how did this
happen? And she tells you a story where she tells you that 3 years earlier she had gone
to gynecologist complaining of a breast lump. And the gynecologist looked at it and said,
"Don't worry, it's just a cyst. It's cystic ***. Come back each year during your routine
visits, we'll check you. You'll be fine." Well lo and behold, 6 months from the time
she's in the hospital she develops a painful breast. Now she goes back to the gynecologist,
has tests and the news is not good. So here she is and you're now in the hospital preparing
her will. What do you do as a trusts and estates attorney where you suspect that she may have
a valid case against the doctor who failed to timely diagnose her breast cancer? Here's
another example. You handle labor law cases, right? A former client of yours calls you
up and says, "Listen. My Dad's in the hospital. He's got lung cancer. He was getting treated.
He fell out of bed, hit his head, suffered a bleed in his head (known as subdural hematoma),
lapsed into a coma and died 3 weeks later. I don't think Dad was supposed to get out
of bed" he says. "I think they should have taken steps to protect him because he was
not himself." What do you do? You handle labor law. Do you turn around and say hey, don't
come to me? I don't know what to do. I have no idea. Go to somebody else, go look in the
yellow pages, go online. That's not the answer for you. One more example. Let's say you handle
business disputes, contract issues. One of your clients tells you about their Mom who
wound up going for a hernia repair. And during the course of the hernia repair, the doctor
inadvertently punctured the bowel. But what was the problem? She developed a massive infection
known as sepsis and ultimately died a few days later because the doctors failed to recognize
the bowel perforation. You handle contract disputes. What could you possibly tell this
client of yours in order to help solve their problem when now it becomes clearly evident
when someone may have been done wrong? The answer is there's a lot you can do.