Last year the New Jersey Legislature enacted a law requiring that the state’s lawyers and many doctors pay $75 a year for three years to help doctors in high-risk specialties pay for malpractice insurance. Now the lawyers have sued, charging it is unfair and improper.
Edwin J. McCreedy, president of the New Jersey State Bar Association, which sued on behalf of its members, called the assessment “grossly unfair to the average attorney in New Jersey who never sees, has nothing to do with, a medical malpractice case. They’re being asked to contribute money to a fund for another profession, which is just ridiculous, for lack of a better word.”
McCreedy estimated the law applies to about 35,000 lawyers who practice in New Jersey. Malpractice cases are litigated by a small number of specialists, and account for less than 2 percent of all lawsuits, decreasing from 1,900 in 2003 to 1,600 in 2004, he said.
Although doctors, dentists, chiropractors and others are also being billed $75 a year, only the lawyers have sued.
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