Bringing you up to date:<\/p>\n
On February 4 I introduced you to Part 1 of the problems \u2014 penultimate, I fervently hope \u2014 I’ve faced in getting Dinkes & Schwitzer, the personal injury lawyers representing my broken metatarsal, to respond to its owner, me. I signed settlement documents in November and was now receiving information from Medicare that needed to be responded to. By, I assumed, my lawyers. I mean, you know. They are<\/em> my lawyers working on this case, right?<\/p>\n But my lawyers did not return my e-mails. So I did all the work for Medicare myself.<\/p>\n I followed up with Part 2 on February 9, in which I published the entire letter I sent to William Schwitzer, the name partner in the law firm.<\/p>\n My post ended ended with a question: “Now<\/em> do you think I heard from these people? You bet I did.”<\/p>\n Sidebar advice<\/strong>: A long time ago, when I worked for Malcolm Forbes, I learned that if you have problems with an entity, always<\/em> write directly to the CEO, the head of the firm. Don’t ever settle for contacting the VP of Angry Customers, or whoever. Go right to the top.<\/p>\n My brother fine-tuned the methodology. When his wife was having problems with the Big Bank whose CEO was Walter Wriston, my brother, a young curmudgeon, sat down at his typewriter and wrote a series of letters addressed “Dear Walt.” It got results.<\/p>\n So a few days after I sent that letter directly to Schwitzer, I received a series of phone messages from a Dinkes paralegal, on the order of, “This is [blank]. Could you please call me about your case.” Around the third message, she was sounding kind of nervous.<\/p>\n I didn’t return her calls \u2014 I was (genuinely) out \u2014 for several reasons. First, although I can control my anger when I write, I’m not always sure about what will happen when I speak to someone directly, mid-anger. I needed a hiatus in which to cool down.<\/p>\n Second, my experience with Dinkes’s paralegals has not been encouraging; her inability to respond fully to my concerns would, I knew, exacerbate my irritation.<\/p>\n Third, she doesn’t deserve my anger: her bosses do. As an ex-law firm worker, I had clients take out their frustrations, angers and pain on me. I was empathetic, yes, but it was their lawyers who should have been listening to them and responding.<\/p>\n And fourth, I felt my letter made it pretty clear that I now expected one of the partners to deal with me directly; I had had enough of the endlessly shifting associates, the “he’s no longer with the firm” associates, and the not fully knowledgeable (and endlessly shifting) paralegals.<\/p>\n So I did not return those calls.<\/p>\n Next<\/strong>: What can you do when your lawyer ignores you? Part 4<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bringing you up to date: On February 4 I introduced you to Part 1 of the problems \u2014 penultimate, I fervently hope \u2014 I’ve faced in getting Dinkes & Schwitzer, the personal injury lawyers representing my broken metatarsal, to respond … Continue reading