Ex-Steinger, Iscoe lawyer sues, claims firm involved in medical fraud

Aug. 12--A well-known personal injury law firm is being accused by a former employee of sending its clients to unscrupulous doctors who conduct unnecessary and expensive tests to spur insurance companies to pay up.

Once nervous insurers agree to settle the artificially inflated claims, attorneys at Steinger, Iscoe & Greene lie to the same medical professionals by understating the amount of the settlements so the law firm can pocket more profits.

The elaborate -- and clearly illegal -- scheme is outlined in a federal whistleblower lawsuit filed last month by former Steinger attorney Hilary Chulock.

The claims are nothing more than an attempt by Chulock to extort money from the West Palm Beach-based law firm, said attorney Mike Pike, who is representing the firm that uses advertising to tout eye-popping awards it claims to have helped clients win.

"She's a former angry employee looking to the win the lottery because she was fired for cause," Pike said. "Her treasure trove is Steinger, Iscoe & Greene."

Chulock's allegations are so scurrilous that the firm with eight locations in Florida and one in California asked U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas to remove the lawsuit from public view. Dimitrouleas refused.

But, Pike predicted, the lawsuit eventually will be dismissed. When Chulock accepted a job in the firm's Fort Lauderdale office last year, she agreed that any employment disputes would be resolved by arbitration, not a court fight.

As a lawyer, Pike said, Chulock knows she can't sue the firm in federal court, particularly since the American Arbitration Association already is considering her claims.

"Because Chulock saw her long sought prey -- (Steinger, Iscoe & Greene) -- slipping from her desired grasp in arbitration, she then filed this action in federal court for no other reason but to forum shop and attempt to force (the firm) to settle the case or she would make the allegations public," he said.

In her lawsuit, Chulock said she signed the mandatory arbitration agreement under duress. Three months after she began working for the firm that is in a legal battle with the Florida Bar over its billboard, television and radio ads that trumpet how much it has won for clients, she was told she would be fired immediately if she didn't agree to the terms.

It wasn't until later that she discovered the firm's disturbing business model: "The firm had made collusive agreements with several medical providers ... the medical providers would give clients 'favorable' diagnoses and would relate them to the accidents alleged by the firm, even if they were not."

While the arrangement worked well for the medical providers and the firm, Chulock said clients weren't as lucky. "Oftentimes, the clients would end up in worse physical condition due to the unnecessary surgeries and treatment," she wrote. "Most of the clients were indigent and were without insurance, making them the perfect victims for this criminal and unconscionable conspiracy."

Further, she said, often the clients received no compensation for their injuries. "In the meantime, the firm unlawfully profited from the calculated misrepresentations made to all involved," she wrote.

Chulock said she was fired after four months on the job when she stumbled upon another lucrative part of the operation. When she settled a case for $335,000, she learned her bosses had ordered her legal assistant to tell the physicians who treated the client that the insurer had agreed to pay $85,000. When she voiced her concerns to her bosses, Sean Greene and William McAfee, they turned the tables on her, she says.

They claimed she, not Greene, told the legal assistant to misrepresent the settlement to the doctors and "negotiate them down" on their fees. She was terminated immediately.

In addition, Chulock claims she was the victim of gender discrimination in what she described was a male-dominated law firm that operated like an "all boys club."

Pike insisted that Chulock's claims are specious. "She was unable to handle various cases, which led to her lack of performance and her termination," he said.

He said there is no criminal investigation underway into the firm's practices. Nor, he said, will there be. Instead, he said, he is considering suing Chulock for making false claims.

"Ms. Chulock decided to make these allegations public in an effort to scare Steiner & Iscoe into settling," he said. "That is why she made such false and meritless allegations."

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