State to compel lawyers to respond timely

California has new rules. If you’re part of an HMO, doctors will be required to treat patients within 10 business days of the patient’s phone call; and patients seeking urgent care that does not require prior authorization must be seen within 48 hours!  Telephone calls to doctors’ offices will have to be returned within 30 minutes!

This is in response to a 2002 law that mandated more timely access to medical care.

Can  you imagine the State mandating that lawyers respond timely? That people  have timely access to legal care? We now have mandated legal care iin criminal matters where the defendant can’t afford a lawyer. And, California is experimenting with providing the same rights in selected civil matters.

In medical care, it seems that government intervention is required in order to provide timely and effective care. When will lawyers learn to do that which is right … providing effective legal care on a timely basis for their clients … without Bar or government intervention? And when will the Bar understand that its members are lawyers, not clients, and truly seek to help lawyers effectively deal with the economic challenges they face?

Categorized in: Personal Thoughts