Summer news

It has been a busy summer here at Perlmutter & Schuelke, LLP.  In May, Volunteer Legal Services of Central Texas once again awarded the firm the Judge Suzanne Covington Award for dedication to pro bono services.  In receiving the award, VLS noted the following comment from one of our VLS clients:

Mr. Mark Perlmutter and Mr. Brooks Schuelke helped me with my case and they were by far without description beyond anything that I could have asked for. They were extremely helpful, caring, concerned, competent, efficient and quick to respond to my needs. They are the finest attorneys. They deserve GOLD MEDALS as attorneys and as responsible, loving citizens. I can’t thank them enough.

In June, Mark Perlmutter was featured in the American Bar Association Journal in the article Two Who Care.  And in July, Mark led a three day seminar, The Best of Trialmasters, at The Crossings , one of the most beautiful facilities in Central Texas.

ATLA on Tort Reform

Despite the fact that insurance companies posted records profits last year (even in the face of Katrina’s unprecedented claims), insurance companies, business groups, and the president continue to call for additional limitations on the public’s rights. 

This month, the American Trial Lawyers’ Association has devoted its monthly magazine to presenting the other side — the story of the victims who really suffer because of tort reform.  As members of the American Trial Lawyers’ Association and the Texas Trial Lawyers’ Association, we hope that you’ll take the time to read or skim some of the articles so you can read the stories and facts that are often ignored in the political exchange of rhetoric. 

Who (or what) is valuing your personal injury claim?

For the last several years, personal injury attorneys (and many insurance company adjusters) have been lamenting about the insurance industry’s use of a computer program, Colossus, to value claims.  Colossus, used by most insurance companies, requires the adjuster to enter information about the claim and then spits out a maximum settlement value.  The insurance companies have given adjusters little, if any, discretion to settle cases for more than the Colossus value.  Insurance companies have tried to keep the operation of Colossus a secret, even going so far as to suing former employees who were attempting to educate attorneys on the operation of Colossus.   Using the little we do know, we have adjusted the way our claims are submitted to try and maximize the value that Colossus provides for our clients’ cases. But on a whole, Colossus still undervalues cases by approximately twenty percent.

Recent bad faith cases against insurance companies have resulted in more disclosure about the program.  Criticism of Colossus has spread from just the legal community to the popular press, including recent articles in Business Week and other papers.  With any luck, the increased publicity will help pressure the insurance companies into making changes to Colossus.

Hurt? Injured? Need a lawyer? Too Bad!

As election season approaches, and the big dispute so far is whether one candidate for governor can be on the ballot as “Grandma,” we want to remind our clients and future clients that one of the most important political issues to them might be tort reform.

 In October of last year, Mimi Swartz, of Texas Monthly, wrote an article detailing the tort reform process of the last legislative session.  In Hurt? Injured? Need a Lawyer? Too Bad!,  Ms Swartz described the results of the process:

Once upon a time, the purpose of tort law was to make injured people whole. In Texas, victims of medical malpractice or corporate wrongdoing, no matter how poor or powerless, had some redress through the legal system. The Texas constitution plainly states that “all courts shall be open” and that every injured person “shall have remedy by due course of law.” But through the efforts of a small group of wealthy and politically influential businessmen and a legislature slavishly devoted to the organization they founded, Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR), those days are gone, and these rights may disappear across the nation as President Bush pushes his campaign against “greedy trial lawyers” and “frivolous lawsuits.”

Ms. Swartz’ article recently won the John Bartlow Martin Award for Public Interest Magazine Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. 

As November elections approach, we ask you to consider the potential effects of the continued erosion of your rights under the civil justice system.