History
During Dr. DeShaw’s career as a doctor, he became known for determining the cause of conditions that evaded the understanding of most doctors. After practicing in the US, he went to Europe and practiced treating people from over 100 nations. He completed his career as a doctor at the prestigious Hale Clinic, located at the end of Harley Street in London. He was personally recruited by clinic director Theresa Hale, who had heard of his successes as a doctor in London. The Hale Clinic was opened by H.R.H. Prince Charles in 1988, and features many of the world’s leading doctors in conventional and complementary medicine from every part of the world, treating royalty and celebrities including the British Royal Family.
The lawyer of choice for doctors
In 2000, DeShaw established DeShaw Trial Lawyers in Portland, Oregon, as one of the nation’s few doctor / lawyers. Dr. DeShaw’s reputation amongst doctors allowed him to quickly become the lawyer of choice for doctors making referrals on catastrophic and brain injury cases. Rather than creating a firm in which clients had little or no interaction with their lawyer, he chose to accept fewer cases where someone had clearly caused injury to his clients because of their carelessness. His reputation quickly grew, as did his jury verdicts and personal injury settlements.
Exposing Colossus
In 2001, Dr. DeShaw was called by a doctor asking about a secret computer program used by the insurance industry called Colossus. At the time, he had never heard of the program. In his typical fashion, he started to investigate what the insurance industry was trying to hide; a massive scheme to underpay injured people on their personal injury cases, by using a computer system designed to underpay the value of human injuries.
Dr. DeShaw obtained unprotected claims manuals from a variety of insurers, tens of thousands of pages of unprotected documents from cases all over the country, and started interviewing claims adjusters who had been trained in the use of Colossus. Between 2001 and 2004, DeShaw dug deeper, obtaining some of the original programming notes in Australia, and slowly gathered enough information about the program, and its problems, to publish a book for doctors: Colossus: What Every Physician Needs to Know; and a book for lawyers Colossus: What Every Trial Lawyer Needs To Know.
Having established himself as the nation’s foremost expert on Colossus, DeShaw quickly became a highly sought-after lecturer among both doctors and lawyers throughout the country. In 2005 alone, he was published by 12 different state and national legal journals. He became a resource for news sources like Business Week, CNN, Money Magazine, and more on the topic of insurance. He has lectured in multiple states, nationally for both the American Association for Justice and the American Trial Lawyers Association, as well as in two different countries on the practice of law. One of his lectures on understanding traumatic injuries was released on DVD for doctors and lawyers by Trial Guides. As one of Trial Guide’s leading authors, DeShaw is joined by the nation’s leading trial lawyers and jury consultants including Gerry Spence, Rick Friedman, David Ball, Don Keenan and others.
Hensley just the beginning
Within four years of becoming a lawyer, law firms throughout the country were taking notice of DeShaw’s success. In 2004, he was approached by lawyer Reggie Whitten of Oklahoma for the class action case of Sikes v. Farmers Insurance, a national class action case regarding the improper use of Colossus to underpay personal injury claims. He worked as a consultant with Whitten’s firm, resulting in payments to Farmers Insurance customers of over $150 million in underpaid claims. Together, the Whitten and DeShaw firms then embarked on what was to be called the largest insurance class-action case in US history: Hensley et. al. v. Computer Sciences Corporation, et. al. with Nix Patterson Roach of Texas, and Goodson Keil of Arkansas. The case involved a class action lawsuit against over 580 insurance companies who were alleged to have conspired in intentionally underpaying personal injury claims to their own customers. As co-counsel, DeShaw succeeded in securing over $400 million in payments to injured people whose claims were undervalued as a result of the use of Colossus. The success of Hensley sparked interest in other similar cases, currently underway. The firm is also consulted on a variety of other cases involving insurance company underpayment schemes in which the public is intentionally underpaid by insurers.
Supporting the seriously injured
As we look to the future, DeShaw Trial Lawyers will continue to work on behalf of the seriously injured, and against those insurers or other corporations who defraud the public. Contrary to today’s practices in which most lawyers settle every case, the DeShaw firm believes in going to trial. In most cases our clients have serious injuries that will last the remainder of their lives. They require compensation to pay for medical care, lost wages, and other economic costs caused by the injury, as well as the pain and change in quality of life they have experienced after the injury. When an insurer is unwilling to pay what is fair, we go trial. We look to the jury as the conscience of the community to provide real value to human life and to provide full justice for what has been taken from our clients through no fault of their own.
While DeShaw Trial Lawyers hope that you and the people you love, never need our services, please feel free to contact us if you are seriously hurt and need our help.
