Gaining clients is very expensive and losing them just because they are unresponsive is wasteful and painful. Don’t let them slip through your hands!
Our job is to locate your unresponsive clients and make sure you get the most return on your investment. We will locate your clients to:
- Sign your firm’s retainers.
- Locate non-responsive clients
- Have them sign the release on settlements.
We persist, even in the most challenging circumstances. Here is one out of 40 cases about our difficult but successful pursuit during the 2011 Avandia settlement.
In 2011, GlaxoSmithKline set aside $3.4 billion to settle over its Type 2 diabetes drug, Avandia. Patients who took the drug blame the manufacturer for not warning them that Avandia increased the risk of heart attacks and cardiac death.
Our client, a law firm, had a portion of the settlement, but they needed at least 200 clients who were diagnosed with myocardial infarction (MI) or heart attack as a proof of use of Avandia. The firm had about 140 MI cases, so they needed a minimum of 60 people.
The law firm’s attempts of finding certain records for their cases posed a variety of different barriers: for some cases, the medical records were in, but they did not prove that the patient had MI; some cases did not have the right documents from the right health care providers; the records could not be obtained because the doctor was retired or the pharmacy permanently closed; and some clients were completely unresponsive.
Despite these barriers, were able to track down these clients and complete the required 60 people minimum, with an additional of five more people. We also finished the additional cases that proved heart related injuries (though those with other heart injuries may receive less than those with MI, the victim could still receive a handsome amount).
One of our toughest MI cases was that of Mr. Theler (name changed to protect identity) of Alabama.
According to the records, the address listed for Mr. Theler was correct, but no one responded from that address. According to a neighbor, Mr. Theler owned the house, but it had been abandoned for months. We were still unable to locate the client or any family member. We did learn that he had been married several times, but as far as we found, he did not have any children. We were able to track down his latest wife and tried to contact her, but she never returned our calls. According to her neighbors, the woman lived alone so no one could answer the calls for her.
After more research, another neighbor told us that Mr. Theler’s last wife shot him on New Year’s Eve and they last saw him riding in an ambulance. We contacted serval police personnel in that jurisdiction until we found a detective who was involved in the case and willing to talk to us. The detective gave us the name of the hospital where our subject passed away. There were two challenges presented that made this discovery a difficult one: one, the case was too recent to be in local databases; and two, it turned out the subject lived in Alabama but died at a Navy hospital in Florida.
The settlement deadline was fast approaching. The hospital was unable to give us any records and going through official channels may push us past it. We finally convinced a clerk to go through the records and give us the name of the person who signed the death certificate. We then contacted all people in Alabama and Florida with the same name as the death certificate signer.
We finally found Mr. Theler’s only next of kin! He was the son of our subject’s third wife, and our subject had adopted him more than 30 years ago! Despite this, the son had no information on any of the doctors or clinics his father may have visite throughout his life. He did, however, obtain the death certificate. According to the death certificate, his cause of death was a heart attack. This gave us the Proof of Injury, but there were no records of Avandia use. This pushed us a step back.
We were finally able to find the woman who shot him. She was not in jail because the shooting did not cause his death—it was cardiac arrest that took his life. We convinced her to give us the name of the Alabama doctor that originally prescribed Mr. Theler Avandia. We finally contacted that doctor, and with that doctor’s records, finally received a proof of use!
Not all cases are this difficult. However, we are willing to go far to get your cases settled, and this is one of many stories that illustrates our dedication.