This is the way Charles Dickens published, in chapter installments:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 Part 6 Part 7.
What can you do when your lawyer ignores you? You can do some of the work he’s supposed to be doing yourself.
I’ve told you that Medicare supported me, so to speak, when I was on crutches with that broken foot bone. The one that happened so long ago (January 25, 2008), I’ve almost forgotten about it.
Almost. I’ve also told you that out of my settlement on this case, we (oh, I’m being so nice to say “we,” meaning my lawyers and me), must reimburse Medicare for its medical expenditures on my broken foot. And I told you that Medicare had sent me a very long list of expenditures, most of which had nothing to do with my foot.
After getting no response from my lawyers, I had called the MSPRC (do you really want to know what that stands for? Nah. It’s enough to know that it’s the group Medicare assigned to dealing with my case), and was told how to get the non-foot-related charges eliminated from that draft letter.
I obeyed them, did all the work they required, sent copies to my lawyers. And I just got another letter, with a corrected list of charges. Medicare (government agencies are terrific) got it almost entirely right. There was one extra charge, for an MRI that did not concern my foot.
Now, did I bother informing my lawyers about this? Of course not. Because they didn’t take care of the first round of Medicare communications. I called the MSPRC myself, got a really nice lady on the phone, chatted a bit and she removed that charge.
I’ll be getting a new letter soon, confirming.
Meanwhile, I think I’ll just mosey over to my e-mail and inform Marc Mauser at Dinkes & Schwitzer that I’m on the case and am taking care of things. Why not? Maybe they’d want to know, since they are the ones who’ll be writing that check to Medicare.
And by the way, the nice lady at MSPRC told me that my lawyers were not on their records. Which they have to be, in order to get copies of all this work I’m doing on our behalf. It’d be nice if MSPRC informed my lawyers directly, rather than putting me to the trouble of writing yet another letter to Dinkes & Schwitzer, wouldn’t it?
Hey, I’m a scrupulous worker. So today I’ll follow the MSPRC instructions to get into the web site and add my lawyers as authorized to receive information. Least I can do.
But meanwhile, I haven’t heard from Marc with a copy of the draft settlement accounting, the one I asked for on Leap Year Day, February 29. So maybe I’ll just reiterate that in my e-mail.
I don’t know what on earth Dinkes & Schwitzer is thinking, or doing. But in no way should any client be ignored like this — especially at the end of a case when the law firm is going to get paid.