| When
Bob Talaska's first child was being born,
he was as nervous as any prospective
parent. But Talaska knows more about
the miracle of birth than most people,
since he is a lawyer specializing in birth
trauma and in suing doctors and hospitals
where childbirth tragedies and errors
allegedly occur.
Talaska
says he has represented more than 100
families with significant complex medical
malpractice cases involving
childbirth. And he has landed eight
settlements of more than $2 million and
two other settlements of more than $5
million.
"I
really didn't say what I did,"
Talaska says, referring to his own child's
birth. It all came out OK and after
the birth, he confessed to the doctors
what he did for a living. That's
when Talaska learned the hospital already
knew his legal background and assigned a
supervisor to handle the birth.
The son of
a lawyer who served as a magistrate in
Milwaukee, Talaska says he knew early on,
in a misguided way, the law was a likely
part of his future. |
"I
thought lawyers had a great job because he
would leave at 8:30 in the morning, come
home for lunch, and come home at 4:30
p.m., without any homework ever,"
Talaska says of his father. More
seriously, Talaska says his father
emphasized that getting a law degree opens
doors. Years later, on a basketball
scholarship at Beloit College in
Wisconsin, Talaska earned an economics
degree in 1984, choosing that major
because a number of the upper-class
players did.
Then he
blew out his knee and spent a summer on
crutches, which he says was a surprise
blessing. Talaska devoted that
summer to studying for the LSAT and did
well. He earned his law degree from
the University of Houston Law Center in
1988.
Talaska
wanted to do medical malpractice and,
having clerked at the Haskins Law Firm in
Houston, signed on there. He soon
gravitated to birth trauma as a
specialty. He and Jacquelyn C.
Gregan bought out the firm in 1996, and
the pair split two years later, with
Talaska forming his own firm. He is
executive director for the Association of
Trial Lawyers of America's Birth Trauma
Litigation Group and vice president of the
Houston Trial Lawyers Association. |
