Preston J Douglas – Superlawyer Exposed To Green Kryptonite
Following is a transcript of the video. It differs slightly from the video in order to make it more readable.
Now I’d like to talk about this SuperLawyer nonsense. Superlawyer is a website that has arbitrarily decided that if an attorney manages to get a million-dollar settlement on a case then he’s considered a superlawyer. Well, that’s just an arbitrary definition. but it rules out Preston J. Douglas and rules in Kathleen M. Beck. She may be a defense attorney but she’s a superlawyer alright because she makes mincemeat out of incompetent attorneys like Preston J. Douglas. So if Preston J. Douglas is a superlawyer, then he must be on a steady diet of green kryptonite because the legal arguments that were made in the Dr. Hollin case are not that of a superlawyer. They are in fact those of a pathetic wimp of an attorney.
The legal arguments that were made are those of an attorney who is afraid of confrontation, afraid to use words like fraud, malice and lied, an attorney who feels he has to twist an entire case around to benefit the defendant just so he doesn’t have to be bothered doing any work, confronting any witnesses or doing anything at all for that matter. I mean, Preston J. Douglas essentially did nothing to properly prosecute this case. He couldn’t even make a phone call. I mean, he couldn’t even be bothered calling up Dr. Haroupian to discuss the autopsy report. Not only that, after I spoke to Dr. Haroupian and he explained to me the time-bomb effect of the operation, I called Dr. Bennett the head of Pathology at Albert Einstein medical school and explained the situation to him. Namely that Dr. Haroupian said the operation was a time bomb and we had no idea that Phyllis had two aneurisms. Dr. Bennett told me that they would do whatever they could to help out. Preston J. Douglas couldn’t even be bothered giving him a call to say hello. Here was an incredibly valuable resource ready to assist with the case and Preston J. Douglas couldn’t be bothered giving him a phone call.
The same thing goes for Phyllis’ parents. Obviously, her parents should have been deposed and asked what happened at Mount Sinai Hospital and her appointments with Dr. Hollin. They were the ones that attended her there as I never met Dr. Hollin in person and only . spoke to him a few times over the phone. I mean we know what they were told in writing at the hospital, that she had one aneurysm, but obviously Mr. Douglas should have elicited more information from them. e.g. whether there were other doctors involved and what were they telling them; what happened at Phyllis’ appointments with Dr. Hollin especially her last appointment when she complained to Dr. Hollin of the symptoms she was having. Preston J. Douglas couldn’t be bothered giving them a phone call to discuss it over the phone. Instead he asked me to ask them if they knew of any further appointments Phyllis had with Dr. Hollin. Again, back to the further appointments. That’s how little work this attorney did as he couldn’t even pick up a phone to make a call. I mean, he literally did nothing for 26 months. It’s unbelievable.
There is no other job in the world where you can sit around for 26 months scratching your head all day and keep your job. If you have any type of normal job and you sit around for a day or two twiddling your thumbs, your supervisor is going to ask you if everything is okay. And if a week goes by and the calluses on your thumbs are starting to grow from all the twiddling you’ve been doing, you would be fired on the spot. But it appears that the career of medical malpractice attorneys just goes on and on and on. I mean, there are no standards of performance and there are also no regulations regarding this. That is a serious problem. I can assure you that there are no Associations nor Federal Trade Commission of attorneys nor anyone else looking out for the welfare of the general public. The public is on their own to sort this out.
There is nothing to prevent Preston J. Douglas from climbing to the highest mountain with a megaphone proclaiming to the world what an expert he is in the field of medical malpractice law and he’s still doing it to this day. I mean, if you read his resume’ which of course was written by none other than Preston J. Douglas, you would think, ooh, this guy must be some sort of hotshot medical malpractice attorney. He was the head of the medical malpractice department at Fuchsberg & Fuchsberg. He was on TV in the Maury Povich show and Court TV. He has a biology degree. He was the editor of some law journal. He gives lectures on the preparation of complex medical malpractice cases. So yeah, we’ll get to that one in a minute. So if you read all that you would naturally think whoa, this guy must be some sort of hotshot attorney. And then all of a sudden we have the Dr. Hollin case and there’s no way to correlate the way he managed to destroy it with his resume’. So it just goes to show you that resume’s look good on paper but that’s about it. I mean, all that matters is results and the results that Preston Douglas produced in the Dr. Hollin case are pathetic.
Yes, President Douglas claims that he gives lectures on the preparation of complex medical malpractice cases. Well, that’s a joke and a half if I ever heard one. If ever there was a medical malpractice case where Preston J. Douglas could prove his expertise in the preparation of a complex one it was the case against Dr. Hollin but all Preston J. Douglas could do was crap out with a prescription from the family doctor. It’s a joke as he didn’t even bother to read the medical records. And so the notion that he thinks he’s qualified to give lectures on the subject is a joke. It doesn’t matter whether a medical malpractice case is complex, simple or anywhere in between. The very first thing an attorney is supposed to do is read every medical record and he didn’t bother to do that. So the notion that he thinks he’s qualified to give lectures on the subject is ridiculous.
Anybody can give a lecture about anything. You can read a book, watch a TV show, or attend a course and then give a lecture on the subject. However, when somebody attends a lecture given by Preston J. Douglas, and it’s supposedly about preparing complex medical malpractice cases, they expect to hear from an attorney who is an actual expert in the field, from an attorney who has a history of preparing complex cases like the Dr. Hollin case. And they sure as heck don’t want to hear from an attorney who has a track record of butchering and destroying a landmark medical malpractice case like the Dr. Hollin case and butchering and destroying it in a horrific manner with totally ridiculous and idiotic’ prescription from the family doctor’ legal arguments.
Now, I’d like to show you something from Preston J. Douglas’ attorney profile that he posted on Superlawyers. Preston J. Douglas claims that he meticulously prepares strong cases. Well, that’s another joke and a half if I ever heard one. Again, this is the type of self-serving cow manure that the public has to be aware of. Since Preston J. Douglas prepared the case against the Hollin and he now claims that he meticulously prepares strong cases, a simple logical deduction indicates that Preston J. Douglass methodology of meticulously preparing strong cases involves not reading patient files, not deposing any witnesses, not listening to the client, not knowing the law, contacting unnecessary expert witnesses, providing them with incomplete medical records, wasting $2,000 of the client’s money, coming to the wrong conclusion about the case, sitting on the case for lengthy and extended periods of time doing absolutely nothing, writing legal arguments at the absolute last minute, claiming you don’t know critical information about your own case, claiming a doctor falsified medical records because he felt guilty and citing no case law. Yes, that apparently is Preston J. Douglas’ methodology of meticulously preparing strong cases. Again, this is the type of self serving bullshit that the public has to be aware of and again, there’s no regulation regarding this and nobody to complain to about this pile of crap that he’s dumped on the internet.
Do you know what the grand finale to all this was when the judge issued his ruling? Fuchsberg and Fuchsberg called me up and we met at their offices. After Preston J. Douglas read the ruling that dismissed the case, he couldn’t get me out of his office fast enough as if I was somehow wasting his time. Yes, that was the grand finale. He couldn’t get the client out the door fast enough. I mean, I’ll tell you whose time was wasted: two and a half years of my time not to mention $2,750 flushed down the toilet; $2,000. for Preston J. Douglas’ useless expert witness and $750. for an autopsy report that was never even used. I mean, this attorney did nothing he was supposed to do for the 26 months that he had to prepare the case. He didn’t read the medical records, didn’t depose a single witness, sat on the case for lengthy and extended periods of time and did absolutely nothing. waited to the last minute to writes his legal arguments and created a total bullshit story of a legal argument that completely destroyed the case. And then when the case got dumped into the trash can he can’t get the client out the door fast enough as if it was somehow the clients fault.
I mean, to say that Preston J Douglas is totally unprofessional is putting it mildly. Preston J. Douglas’ business attitude is an abomination as far as I’m concerned. This is just one case that we know about that he butchered and destroyed and handled in this manner. In all likelihood this is his MO. Why would he treat the Dr. Hollin case differently from any other case that he worked on? I doubt he did. People are creatures of habit and they don’t change their spots overnight. They keep repeating the same things over and as I said earlier, reading the medical records should be an automatic function for a medical malpractice attorney but it obviously is not with Preston J. Douglas. So if he didn’t read the medical records in this case, there’s a good chance he didn’t read them in other cases. And then of course we’re talking about deposing witnesses in order to properly prosecute this case.
Every doctor that consulted with Dr. Hollin should have been deposed and that was nine of them total. Furthermore almost all of them filed reports and they all had critical information regarding Dr. Hollin’s activities. Preston J. Douglas didn’t depose a single one of them so we can only guess what went on with his other cases. And then of course we have him rewriting facts and twisting things around and ignoring the medical records. I don’t think that’s something they teach you in law school that’s for sure. That’s Preston J. Douglas at work there. Yeah, that’s no law school methodology. That’s the Preston J. Douglas methodology.
Now, do you know what Preston J. Douglas’ primary excuse is that he thinks somehow explains away his ‘prescription from the family doctor’ legal arguments that were made in this case? Fraud is hard to prove according to Preston J. Douglas. This from the attorney who also states that he gives lectures on the preparation of complex medical malpractice cases as we already reviewed. Well, any attorney who thinks that fraud is hard to prove is a total disaster for the simple reason that whether fraud is hard to prove or not is completely irrelevant. All that matters is what do the facts prove. What Preston J Douglas has done is he has put form before substance. Since he thinks that fraud is hard to prove he is not going to prove fraud even if the evidence clearly indicates fraud is involved and the Dr. Hollin case is a perfect example of that. He would apparently dump an entire case into the trash can like he did in the Dr. Hollin case and it’s an overwhelming case also, all because he thinks fraud is hard to prove. So therefore he has to twist facts around and rewrite the case to make it sound like ordinary negligence.
The bottom line is fraud isn’t hard to prove. That’s total bullshit like everything else Preston J. Douglas said about this case. Fraud is proven every day in the courts in this country. On almost a daily basis you read about somebody getting convicted of fraud. And what is the number one symptom of fraud? falsified documents. In virtually every case of fraud that you read about the perpetrators are falsifying documents in order to further their fraudulent goals. And what do we have in the Dr. Hollin case? We have two surgeons falsifying medical records and when you throw in a concealed aneurysm and a time bomb operation the notion that fraud is hard to prove is just a lame excuse for failure period. The bottom line is fraud isn’t hard to prove. That’s total nonsense. We reviewed the medical records in this case and the fraud is totally obvious with or without the consultant’s report. What Preston J. Douglas is really saying is in order to prove fraud and properly prove the case, it requires some actual work on his part and he is not willing to do the required amount of work period. He would rather just dump an entire case into the trash can than do some actual work like read medical records and depose witnesses.
That’s what’s really going on here. Besides, winners don’t need excuses but losers sure as heck do. Preston J. Douglas is the king of the excuse. If you need an excuse as to why you screwed something up just be sure to give Preston J. Douglas a call. First he makes excuses on behalf of Dr. Hollin and his associates and even Dr. Hollin’s attorney, and then he has to make excuses on behalf of themself. I mean, it’s just a totally pathetic situation frankly. And what really makes Preston J. Douglas a total hazard to be avoided? All the while that he is engaging in these grossly negligent and incompetent acts, you know, not reading patient files, not deposing witnesses and everything else we reviewed, he actually thinks that he knows what he is doing. This makes him a total disaster because he doesn’t hesitate to open his mouth and dish out his garbage legal advice when in fact he doesn’t have a clue as to what he’s talking about.
The Dr. Hollin case is a perfect example of that. Everything Preston J. Douglas said about this case from both a medical and legal point of view was 100% wrong. He didn’t get anything right period. So just the way you would avoid a huge pothole in the road so you don’t damage your car, the services of Preston J. Douglas should be avoided for the same reason so that your legal affairs don’t wind up in the salvage yard the same way that the Dr. Hollin case did.
Any legal advice Preston J. Douglas gives is suspect at best. Sure, he might get lucky and so might a monkey throwing darts at a law book. Frankly, I would sooner trust the monkey throwing the darts than I would trust anything Preston J. Douglas has to say about the disposition of a parking ticket. Besides, who wants to deal with an attorney where you have to check with 10 other attorneys to find out if the original attorney is even giving you the right information because that’s the situation you will be in if you make the mistake of trying to deal with Preston J. Douglas, I wouldn’t trust anything he had to say period.
He didn’t know the law and the entire purpose of going to law school is to learn the law. Granted this law, the Simcuski ruling, came out after he went to law school but that’s irrelevant. Preston J. Douglas states that he was the head of the medical malpractice department of Fuchsberg & Fuchsberg. Well, Fuchsberg & Fuchsberg were presenting themselves to the public as experts in the field of medical malpractice law so you would think the head of the medical malpractice department would be thoroughly familiar with every aspect of his profession, from knowing how to prepare a case to knowing critical case law. Preston J. Douglas didn’t have a clue about any of this.
Interestingly enough, Preston J. Douglas was fully aware that in 1975 the statute of limitations for ordinary negligence involving medical malpractice in the State of New York was reduced from three years to two and a half years. Yeah, that he knew about because that particular change in the law fits perfectly into his methodology. Now instead of having to worry about what happened during the last three years he only has to worry about what happened during the last two and a half years. So now he has to do even less work than before. The Simcuski ruling, however, was just three years later in 1978. He didn’t have a clue about that one because that one doesn’t fit into his methodology of sitting around playing tiddlywinks all day. Now all of a sudden if fraud is involved, he may have to look back as in the Dr. Hollin case eight and a half years. That obviously requires some work, so he didn’t have a clue about that one.
And here is another interesting little point about the Simcuski ruling. One of the appellate judges that affirmed the ruling was Jacob Fuchsberg, Abe Fuchsberg’s brother and former law partner. Well, you would think that the attorneys at Fuchsberg & Fuchsberg would not only be thoroughly familiar with critical case law in the field of medical malpractice law, but they would be doubly familiar with it since Abe Fuchsberg’s own brother was one of the judges who affirmed the ruling. Preston J. Douglas didn’t have a clue about that.