I have read a series of opinion articles authored by an employee of a small New Jersey medical malpractice insurance company who has proposed some truly bizarre ideas. For example, one proposal was a requirement that all medical malpractice defense lawyers, and only medical malpractice defense lawyers, be required to maintain $5 million in legal malpractice insurance.  The author explained he was "shocked" to learn that some New Jersey medical malpractice defense firms "only carry $1 million of legal malpractice policy limits."

Most lawyers in the malpractice bar, both plaintiff and defense, were only mildly amused at this opinion, because this small insurance company does not offer any malpractice insurance policy to physicians with liability limits of more than $1 million! The proposal to mandate $5 million in malpractice coverage for this very small group of medical malpractice defense lawyers was not taken seriously, and was, by and large, ignored by the courts and the bar, negating any need to reply.

However, the most recent op-ed is about the affidavit of merit (AOM), a topic I know something about, and I cannot let this editorial go unanswered. The author suggests we should start taking discovery from the affiant, including deposing the affiant before the exchange of any other discovery, thereby creating a vast new layer of expense in these cases. The stated rationale was "By having a professional serve as an affiant on a document critical to a claim of malpractice, without requiring them be subject to cross-examination allows the flood gates to open." The op-ed ignores the fact the AOM statute has worked as intended and quite well.