Video Transcript:

Petrillo: What is a lien?

Goldberg: A lien in our world is money that is owed back to another party for a payment that was made on behalf of a person for various reasons. For example, Medicare and Medicaid. In a lot of our cases, we have people whose primary medical insurance is through one of those programs. And if you are on Medicare or Medicaid and you get treatment, say you have a trip and fall accident, you fall somewhere. Your primary insurance is Medicare. If they provide you with $5,000 in medical coverage for this, they pay bills for your doctors, your testing, et cetera. And you ultimately get a settlement, they have a $5,000 lien, L-I-E-N on your proceeds. And it’s on the portion that you get. And that isn’t something that’s waivable. It isn’t something that’s a choice that we make, because we’d obviously want to choose you to get all the money you could, but it’s money. It’s a federal lien.

Petrillo: Is that lien part of the claim? Is it part of the damages? Or does the client just have to pay that out of their own pocket?

Goldberg: It is part of the damages, because the… And this is would be getting really technical. But, as for Medicare Medicaid, it’s clear, you can put those numbers… We call it on the board. But, basically you put in evidence-

Petrillo: I see.

Goldberg: … those numbers, and then a jury can decide to award that to you. And there’s actually be a separate question on the verdict that whether or not they want to award those medical bills.