How not to practice law: pretend to be a doctor

Popular New York blogger Eric Turkewitz brings us an interesting story of a lawyer in a workers' compensation case who tried to play doctor in one of his cases. See here. In this case, a worker suffered an accident and his leg needed to be amputated. In order to defend against a claim, the lawyer for the defendant argued that the amputation was "elective." What is impressive is that the lawyer did this by filing an affidavit in which the lawyer, not a doctor or medical expert, argued under oath the amputation was not necessary. As the court explained, the affidavit "lacked any competent medical evidence and contained only unsupported allegations in an attempt to create issues of fact."