Mark DeBofsky is the top disability lawyer in the state of Illinois. He was named a Super Lawyer in Employee Benefits/ERISA in every year since 2009, and since 2011, he has been listed among the Top 100 Lawyers in the State of Illinois and among the Top 10 in Illinois in 2017. 

He is a member of the DeBofsky law firm as well as an adjunct professor of law at University of Illinois-Chicago John Marshall Law School. He is a prolific author who has written many journal articles and has been a regular columnist for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin since 2004. Mark DeBofsky is also an annual contributor to the ERISA Survey of Federal Circuits published by the American Bar Association and served for many years as a senior editor of Employee Benefits Law published by Bloomberg.

His warmth, empathy and compassion really come through when discussing this profoundly important and under-reported area of not only the law, but indeed also of the misfortunes and challenges people face.

For more information on Mark:

www.debofsky.com

mdebofsky@debofsky.com

Key takeaways:

• Working in disability law is a chance to do good for individuals and to solve concrete legal problems.
• The ERISA act of 1974 was designed to help claimants, but is in fact now being used mostly to favor the interests of employers and companies in social security cases. This can make things very difficult – and there is a good chance of ending up with $0. Mark has argued that elements of the ERISA act are unconstitutional.
• A common mistake lawyers make is being too eager to reach a resolution; be more patient and stick to your guns (though you must have a high tolerance for risk).
• Explain the process of mediation properly to clients to prepare them for the process. Don’t ask them for their bottom line (they should come in with a completely open mind and be willing to listen).
• Some companies discourage pre-litigation resolutions as a general rule.
• Cases brought in Texas are worth less than cases in Illinois.
• If you know your case, you can be ready to go to court on day one.
• As a disability lawyer, you need to know the claim record of your client inside and out. You’ll be dealing with a host of medical conditions, some of which translate into a disability more easily than others in the support of a claim.
• Terms are mostly economic in these kinds of cases.
• Mark spends 50% of his day being a psychotherapist due to the nature of this work.
• There is rampant discrimination in insurance policies for psychiatric considerations, and some people assume that there must be some fault on the disabled person for becoming disabled (another form of discrimination).
• Media coverage is absent on this area – editors consider it too difficult to make a succinct and clear story from these cases.

2:35:

How did you become a disability lawyer?

7:30:

Dealing with insurance companies and the difficulties in this?

13:00:

Preparing for a negotiation?

15:00:

How to resolve a case pre-litigation?

19:20:

Biggest mistakes lawyers in your field make?

20:28:

How do you prepare a client for mediation?

22:45:

How to determine the value of a disability claim?

24:50:

Specifics of negotiating value?

26:12:

When do you decide to mediate cases?

27:30:

Dealing with impasse?

31:15:

Non-economic terms?

34:00:

How does the psychological state of clients affect the process?

38:30:

Media coverage?

42:50:

The future – optimistic or pessimistic?

46:10:

Contact details and final remarks.

Scott Becker previously served on the McGuireWoods LLP Board of Partners and served for nearly 15 years as chairman of the firm’s national Healthcare department. McGuireWoods has one of the best regarded healthcare practices in the world. Scott is the Founder and the Publisher of Beckers Healthcare and Beckers Hospital Review and its related events and publications. Mr Becker remains the Publisher and Chief Content Officer of Beckers HealthCare. Scott also produces the Becker Group Business News, the Becker Private Equity Podcast, and the Becker Business Podcast. Mr Becker is a Harvard Law School Graduate and a University of Illinois undergraduate business school graduate in Finance and Accounting. He is also the author of four books and a CPA.

Key takeaways:

• Simplify your goals and objectives: What is your side looking for in the simplest terms? This provides clarity.
• People can go into negotiations without really knowing what they want, and this can make things messy. Make sure everyone on your team is on the same page.
• A balance of working side by side with other professionals and learning the academic side of negotiation is key.
• You can’t do a good deal with bad people.
• People generally want a fair amount of money and a good working relationship, not necessarily the most amount of money.
• Private equity has been democratized in recent years to some degree.
• A client needs to understand what their core goals are and how they will impact the deal. 
• What are the important and unimportant issues? You don’t be a ‘killer’ on every issue!

1:50

How did you hone your negotiation skills?

3:40

How do you do things differently from others in your field?

5:30

How to deal with mixed messages from your own team in health care negotiations?

9:10

Hardest types of health care deals to negotiate?

12:30

How to expand the pie when money seems like a zero-sum proposition?

13:50

Hardest matters to deal with in private equity?

17:20

Are private equity valuations going up?

18:35

Common mistakes lawyers make in private equity deals?

21:50

Common mistakes in health care work?

24:40

Typical non-economic terms in health care?

26:30

Dealing with difficult clients?

29:36

When do you decide to mediate?

30:40

Dealing with impasse?

31:40

Settlement privileges?

32:36

Take it or leave it deals?

34:40

How does media involvement and publicly available information affect a deal?

37:50

Final remarks