Pennsauken's
Milstein helps Davids battle the Goliaths
By MIKE DANIELS
Courier-Post Staff
PENNSAUKEN
Sunday, February 8, 2004
"Sometimes the needs of
the one outweigh the needs of the many."
The line comes from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. It was uttered
by the immortal Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner). And it is in
direct contrast to the Vulcan logic of Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy),
who in the previous Star Trek movie stated that the needs of the many
outweigh the needs of the one.
Pennsauken lawyer
Alan C. Milstein believes in Kirk's logic, not Spock's. Shatner's line,
noteworthy among Star Trek fans like Milstein, sums up his legal career.
A man who most often
battles insurance companies, research universities and pharmaceutical
conglomerates, Milstein's latest dragon was the mighty National Football
League.
As with so many
others, Milstein slew this beast, too. On Thursday, Milstein's most
famous client, Ohio State University running back Maurice Clarett, was
cleared to play in the NFL this year by a federal judge in New York.
In a 71-page ruling
handed down before the case even went to trial, U.S. District Judge
Shira Scheindlin said it is unlawful for the NFL to bar players from
entering the league until three years after their high school class
has graduated. The NFL plans to appeal, but Milstein is certain the
ruling will stand.
The NFL rule, which
was modified in 1990 but dates to the 1920s, would have prevented Clarett
from being drafted by an NFL team until 2005. Now, the 20-year-old running
back who led Ohio State to a national title 13 months ago as a freshman,
can be drafted in April.
Beyond that, the
ruling will allow future high school football players or college freshmen
and sophomores to jump to the NFL early, just as teenage basketball
players do in entering the NBA draft.
Many football pundits
have said the ruling hurts the league, the athletes who will enter the
draft too early and fans who will have to watch an inferior product,
all at the expense of one person, Clarett.
It all smacks of
Kirk's line, although in this case, Milstein disagrees. "It will
benefit athletes who come after him," he said. "Maurice understood
he was taking a great risk by filing this lawsuit. If it means he's
going to end up going lower in the draft, he accepts that position."
At first glance,
Clarett might seem an odd client for an attorney with Milstein's specialties.
He is not a sports agent and does not plan to become Clarett's agent.
But Milstein, 50,
of the Pennsauken firm Sherman, Silverstein, Kohl, Rose and Podolsky,
likes any case in which he can fight for the little guy. He tries to
model himself after one of the all-time underdog, good-guy lawyers,
the fictional Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird.
"I happen to
be someone who believes the practice of law is a noble profession, that
lawyers are a positive force of change in this country." Second
career
It wasn't always
Alan Milstein's dream to become a lawyer. A Bob Dylan and Lenny Bruce
fan who grew up in Baltimore's Jewish neighborhoods and suburbs, Milstein
graduated from the University of Maryland in 1975 and went on to the
University of Kansas, where he earned a master's degree in American
Studies.
At Kansas he taught
classes on America in the 1950s and 1960s. Dylan, Jack Kerouac and Ken
Kesey were among the artists Milstein lectured on. Later, Milstein worked
as an art critic for the Philadelphia Bulletin until it went out of
business in 1982.
After the Bulletin
folded, Milstein decided that to raise a family, he'd need more than
a reporter's salary. He went to Temple University Law School and graduated
in 1983.
Since then he's
almost always represented the Davids of the world in their courtroom
battles with the Goliaths. Although he says money isn't the driving
force behind which cases he takes, he has managed to make enough to
comfortably support his wife and three children. They live in Lafayette
Hill, Pa., and unlike some high-profile lawyers, Milstein spends most
evenings and weekends with his family rather than at the office.
He doesn't believe
that to be an honorable lawyer, one must be a poor lawyer. "I am
fortunate to be able to take great cases for great causes and that as
an unintended consequence, result in a pretty fair fee for me and my
firm," he said. Suing Penn
One case that made
Milstein plenty of money but also brought him great personal satisfaction
was that of Jesse Gelsinger.
In 1999, Gelsinger,
an 18-year-old from Tucson, Ariz., with a rare genetic liver disorder,
volunteered to take part in a clinical study at the University of Pennsylvania.
Researchers there were developing medicine designed to cure infants
of the disease. Gelsinger knew the gene therapy treatment couldn't help
him, but might help others in the future.
The experimental
treatments began on Sept. 13, 1999. Four days later, Gelsinger was dead.
In December 1999, Paul Gelsinger, Jesse's father, visited Milstein's
firm. Although he was no expert in genetics or biomedical ethics, Milstein
took the case. Within a month, Milstein had brokered a settlement with
the university. While the amount must remain undisclosed, some legal
experts have guessed it to be in the millions.
Since then, Milstein
has taken a number of similar cases. He represents several families
whose relatives died or saw their condition worsened after undergoing
experimental skin cancer treatments at the University of Oklahoma. He
has filed another lawsuit on behalf of clients who participated in clinical
trials at a Seattle cancer center affiliated with the University of
Washington.
In the Oklahoma
suit, part of the basis for his claim is that the university breached
the patients' "right to be treated with dignity." He is using
the 1949 guilty verdicts handed down to Nazi doctors who experimented
on Jews and other concentration camp prisoners as part of the basis
of the suit.
He also has several
clients who are suing doctors and pharmaceutical companies after their
children suffered from drugs prescribed to treat Attention Deficit Disorder.
Milstein's lawsuits
have angered some in the medical community. But he says it is not his
goal to strike fear into universities and laboratories or to halt the
development of drugs that could potentially save the lives of millions.
He simply wants to make the point that individuals should not always
have to be sacrificed for the greater good. "For the most part,
I think the researchers and I are fighting for the same thing, advances
in science that are achieved through an ethical environment."
Milstein's corner
office in Pennsauken is decorated with everything from a seven-generation
family tree, to Simpsons figurines. There's an old copy of the Saturday
Evening Post with Dylan on the cover. There's a book about the plight
of Jews growing up in the South called Shalom Y'All. There's a Baltimore
Orioles cap and a paperback copy of The Godfather, his favorite movie.
High-profile case
Milstein won't say
how Clarett came to be his client, only that he has wide connections.
Milstein's Since Milstein began representing the star running back last
summer, he has received plenty of hate mail. He's also received his
share of media attention. Articles about Clarett in The New York Times
and Washington Post hang on his walls.
Groundbreaking,
at least in the football world, the Clarett case lacks one element of
his other cases - the issue of life and death.
"There are
far less weighty issues in the Maurice Clarett case, which is funny
to me because reporters will say, `Gee, you've never been involved in
such a weighty case, have you?' "
But Clarett's case
still plays on the common theme that Milstein looks for: an individual
fighting against the so-called "greater good."
Walter "Pete"
Swayze, a Philadelphia attorney who represents medical device manufacturers
and pharmaceutical companies, has known Milstein for years. The two
have squared off in more than one case but remain friends.
"We have mutual
respect for each other. He's really a tribute to the profession,"
Swayze said. "He represents every client as if they are Maurice
Clarett."
Swayze was not surprised
Milstein took Clarett's case or that he won before it even went to trial.
"His mantra is really not NFL players or medical devices. It is
representing people who have been harmed or wronged by the system. It's
a common thread for him."
