There is nothing more important in the litigation of a nursing home case than “internal” documentation generated by the owners and/or management companies responsible for the operation of the nursing home. This internal documentation can lay the framework for the successful prosecution of your case. While the data memorialized in the documentation may vary from nursing home to nursing home, the type of information is typically of the same general nature.

After years of work, meetings with the client, depositions, hearings, countless hours spent reviewing and analyzing the chart, consultation with experts, preparation and presentation of witnesses, you are now on the eve of trial in a nursing home case. You have a great responsibility to the nursing home resident and/or their family, as well as to the nursing home population at large.

Ethics rules represent the mandatory minimum standard of conduct below which no attorney may fall. By contrast, the idea of professionalism represents aspirational standards of conduct that surpass the threshold ethical requirements. The message of professionalism is a combination of competency and diligence, conformance to ethics, civility to others in the legal system and the improving of the legal system. The Preamble to the Alabama Rules of Professional Conduct (“ARPC”) states in pertinent part:

Finding a consistent and widely accepted definition of mass torts is a difficult task. To some, it is synonymous with pharmaceutical products liability litigation; to others, it is a pseudonym for toxic torts; to others, it is perhaps more than these, and to others less. But consistent through the incarnations that we place on this term (mass torts) is the fact that it relates to litigation of very specific products that are, for the most part widely used, and in the same manner -- or similarly so -- by all end users. Drug and medical device litigation clearly fits within this definition.

The past 20 or so years saw tremendous growth in the mutual fund industry.1 According to some reports, as many as 95 million Americans own shares of mutual funds.