Attorney Jay Paul Deratany, from Chicago, Illinois represented me in my breast implant medical malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Robert S. Kagan. Dr. Kagan was represented by attorney Michael Tarpey from Chicago, Illinois.

At the time I hired Mr. Deratany, he had a small law firm with two young attorneys working for him. Mr. Tarpey is a very experienced lawyer having worked for Baker & McKenzie for six years, one of the world’s preeminent law firms with over 200 attorneys just in the Chicago office. Mr. Tarpey then became one of the founding members of the law firm Donohue, Brown, Mathewson & Smyth with approximately 24 attorneys employed there. The web site for Mr. Tarpey’s firm states that Mr. Tarpey “specializes in defending medical negligence cases.” On the Trial Results page of their web site there is page after page of the firms examples of defense verdicts that they have won in defending doctors accused of medical negligence and medical malpractice.

Dr. Kagan had no limit on funds to prepare and try his case, as it was all being paid for by his medical malpractice insurance company. Dr. Kagan was being represented by a premier medical malpractice defense law firm. I, on the other hand, was being represented by a very small law firm, working from my very limited budget. I was told at the time that I hired Mr. Derantany that I would be required to pay the costs of my case as the costs were incurred. By the time my trial was over I had spent well over $40,000.00.

When attorneys say that you do not pay any attorney's fees unless they win your case, they are talking about the percentage of your judgement that they get. This does not mean the expenses incurred in preparing and taking your case to trial. You will be paying those costs, win or lose, and the costs are astronomical!

During the years that I waited for my case to go to trial, I was in frequent disagreements with my attorney about the way he was preparing my case for trial. Among other issues, I was very unhappy with the fact that he had sent a very young associate from his firm to take the depositions of several of my treating doctors. I felt those depositions were too important to be done by a young associate and should have been done by Mr. Deratany himself.

The basis of my case was that I did not consent to the Benelli procedure. The consent form did not say that I was having the Benelli procedure done. The consent form stated that my implants were to be exchanged: nowhere was there a mention of the Benelli procedure being performed. I felt that we needed to present an expert to explain to the jury the nature of legal consent. I felt that we should have obtained the testimony of the Administrator of the hospital where Dr. Kagan operated on me, Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, regarding the hospital's consent policy. Certainly the Administrator would not agree with Dr. Kagan having done such a procedure on me without the proper consent. Certainly the Administrator would dispute Dr. Kagan’s claim that it was the hospital rule to “hurry up and wheel them in to surgery” rather than take the time to get legal and proper consent. The day before trial was to start when I was again expressing to Mr. Deratany how unhappy I was that he did not explore getting the expert on consent that I wanted him to, Mr. Deratany said that maybe we could dismiss the case, start over and get another expert rather than just using my physician, Dr. Coleman, as our sole expert on consent. When he explained all the legal repercussions should we decide to do that, I saw that I really had no choice but to go forward with the trial with the medical malpractice lawsuit.