Chester A. Wilk, D.C., P.C 5130 W. Belmont Ave. Chicago, IL 60641 Tel. (773) 725-4878 December 16, 2004 Terry Rondberg, D.C.Editor 2950 N. Dobson Rd. Chandler, AZ 85224-1802 Dear Dr. Rondberg: I have witnessed a lot of foolish things said and done by chiropractors in my many years in practice but your recent article about George McAndrews hits an all-time low. It is grossly dishonest and needs to be addressed and corrected. Consequently, I could not sit back and ignore your divisive commentary in your publication. I'll cite some well-documented facts and I believe that reasonable people will all agree that you are completely wrong and out of line and that you need to apologize to the entire chiropractic profession and ask Mr. McAndrews to forgive you for your ill-advised comments. Your article noted that Attorney McAndrews and the ACA should be held accountable to how funds are being spent and that the current fund raising was not being conducted in an "open" manner. Your article recommends that taking the Trigon Case on a "contingency" basis would be a better approach as it would provide an "incentive" to win the case instead of extracting money from the profession. And so let' s talk about it. l) About contingency. I don't know of any law firm that would ever accept our case on a contingency. Years ago Attorney McAndrews contacted numerous law firms and none of them would touch our Wilk case with a ten foot pole, let alone on a contingency basis. Besides, no chiropractors should want to have a lawyer on a "true" contingency if they knew all the facts. For example, the national Blue Cross/Blue Shield, as a result of the Trigon Suit made a significant concession (and a significant victory for us) by including chiropractic in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Plans (FEHP) which brings in an estimated $250 million of revenue into the chiropractic profession over two years. Had the Trigon Case been on a "contingency" basis we could have been legally responsible to pay 1/3 of $250 million to the "contingency lawyers every two years. This concession came about quietly and unceremoniously but it was brought about by the Trigon Suit. The BC/BS concession is clearly a ste p in the right direction and not a "disaster" as you put it. And the Trigon Suit sent a strong message to BC/BS that they had better conduct their insurance matters ethically or face serious legal consequences. This fact alone is priceless and worth our cost and effort. Would you like to pay your share of that contingency, Dr. Rondberg? It is widely known that the chiropractic profession has benefited and is continuing to benefit by billions of dollars from the Wilk Suit and the injunction that is still in place and being enforced. Would you, Dr. Rondberg, assuming the case was on a contingency, be prepared to pay your share of the 1/3rd of those billions to George McAndrews? 2) Let's talk about accountability. Your inference that Mr. McAndrews collects contribution money and does not have to account for his bills is absurd. Nothing can be farther from the truth. He has always submitted his hours very precisely and in detail as to what he did. Currently there is a panel of ten highly respected chiropractors who were overseeing the funding of the Trigon Suit 'who closely followed all legal expenses. They are from all walks of our profession. As a tactical matter it would be extremely ill- advised and foolish to openly publish every economic detail and letting our enemies know our economic weakness and strengths as you advocate. In the Wilk case, for example, George did not even know if he would ever get paid his expenses as they piled up and we got progressively deeper in debt. Collecting money from chiropractors is like pulling teeth. Your telling the profession not to support it and equating funds to pouring money down a hole certainly doesn't help the cause. How do you know if Mr. McAndrews didn't put himself into debt once again in this Trigon Suit as he did with the Wilk Suit? Would you want this publicly published? I'm not involved in the Trigon case and so I don't know their financial situation but had we not eventually won the Wilk Suit, George would have taken a terrible financial loss. It amounted to a lot more than the profession will ever realize, and he did not hold us plaintiffs responsible for one penny if funds did not come in. Would you have done this for chiropractic? If his past record is not enough to convince you of his sincerity, dedication and commitment to chiropractic then t here is a lot more. George won't talk about it and so I will have to do it. Let me cite some other examples. George knew we were financially strapped and so be did everything he could to cut our costs. As part of the Wilk Suit he drove to the State of Michigan and took depositions of MD's. You may recall an MD addressing the Michigan Medical Society saying that chiropractors are like "rabid dogs." Attorney McAndrews drove 1,500 miles around Michigan taking depositions and sleeping in his automobile for five days to avoid plane and hotel costs. Would you do this for chiropractic? Mr. McAndrews started using the firm's secretarial help while his partners were out of town and not recording their hours. When his partners found out what he was doing, they demanded that he record all of the hours. Partly as a result of these disagreements, George decided to leave that firm and start his own firm and take five other lawyers with him. Because of the high respect that his clients had for George they followed him and his firm grew by leaps and bounds. Thank God he is now the head mast of one of America's most successful 80-man law firm, which occupies two entire floors of the Citicorp Bank Building in Chicago. Like the old saying, what goes around, comes around. His compassion and goodness paid off. I'll not get into the legal merits of the Trigon Suit because I'm not qualified to judge. But if I am to take sides I would go with George who got his law degree at the top of his class. I wish I could talk about his incredible academic accomplishments but he preferred I did not. His academic excellence earned him a position as a law clerk to a Federal Judge on the United State Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Notre Dame Law Review. These accomplishments alone are mind-boggling when you think about it. George will modestly say that it's how you perform in court is what matters and not the grades but I differ. He could easily qualify and become a U.S. Supreme Court Justice and be it's shining pillar. I watched George McAndrews perform in the Wilk Suit where he faced dozens of the very best top leading trial lawyers in the nation from some of 'the biggest law firms in America and George was the Michael Jordan in that courtroom. I was proud. He arguably has the greatest legal mind in America today and he is totally committed to chiropractic's cause of honesty and fairness in healthcare. For you to make any remote innuendoes and implications against this man is grossly unfair; unappreciative and heartbreaking to say the very least. And there is more. George was written up as one of the best litigators in the United States by the National Law Journal In 2004 he was cited as the number one patent litigator in Illinois by Chambers and Partners, "America's Leading Lawyers. The Clients Guide. " Judge Nicholas Bua from the original Wilk trial said in part: "Your opening statement was without doubt the finest opening statement I have ever heard in my entire career, both on the bench and in trial practice. Your final arguments were superb!... You have demonstrated one of the finest pieces of representation that I have ever had the pleasure to see. You are not just in the category of a lawyer in the case, you were almost evangelistic about it without being evangelistic, if you get the court's meaning. You have demonstrated to me that the Bar of Illinois is very professional" 3) About George McAndrews having "incentive" to do the right thing for chiropractic. George has billion-dollar corporate clients. This is what happens when you attain the level of such trust, respect, confidence and admiration from your clients. Do you in all good conscience or with any common sense believe that such a man would try to take advantage of chiropractors while he has all these giant corporations throwing lucrative cases on his desk for his choosing? Frankly he needs us and the likes of you about as much as he needs the mumps. There are over 20 chiropractors in his family including his father, sister, brother and daughter. He recalls the painful rejection his dad suffered as a chiropractor. That is his incentive. Don't judge Attorney McAndrews by what you may do you were in his shoes. He is a special and unique lawyer and human being in more than one way. His role transcends incentive; his is a mission of love and compassion for chiropractic and its patients and t otal commitment to honesty in health care. We are indeed very fortunate to have him represent us. >From my perspective we need to educate the public and we have failed to do so miserably. We need a balanced legislative, legal and public educational leg to become stable somewhat like a three legged stool. Our legal and legislative legs are very strong but our leadership has never dedicated itself to develop our third educational leg to be as solid as the other two. We certainly have all of the necessary ingredients and capability to make this third leg very sturdy, and it doesn't take money, but it takes a realization of its importance and special commitment to do so. Your negative influence, Dr. Rondberg, is like a malignancy or decay to an already feeble public educational leg which can damage its function and can topple this profession much in the same manner as this stool. I hope that you and your few followers realize this. I recall Judge Nicholas Bua telling the lawyers in the second Wilk trial that '"He'd bet his house against their house" that we chiropractors would win the second suit before Judge Getzendanner. Why did we lose the first Wilk trial? We lost because we were dealing with a society that was grossly ignorant and misinformed about chiropractic due in large part to ignorant misstatements and actions by fringe chiropractors like you, Dr. Rondberg. By the "letter of the law" we should have won that jury trial, yet we lost and had to retry our case. With public ignorance and misinformation running as rampant about chiropractic as it is today I doubt that we can ever get a fair jury trial anywhere until we adequately educate the public. Your spewing out misinformation and negativity undermines the energy, pride and will of our profession to build on its magnificent performance. Advocates talk about the importance of legislation and of course it is important. But legislators respond to only two things --money and votes. We don't have enough money but with an enthusiastic society supporting chiropractic (instead of an apathetic or misinformed one) our patients will become our "votes" and consequently legislation would become easier and less costly. George McAndrews, though arguably one of the most brilliant lawyers in the land, cannot alter public opinion and respect for chiropractic in a court room with litigation any more than legislators can do it with legislation. That's simple, common horse sense. This is why we need every State chiropractic association to form a spokesperson program and take our message to the media and press (and legislators) as I have been advocating for years. Political medicine won't promote chiropractic but may try to plagiarize it. We need to get the media and press to work with us instead of against us so we can reverse the trend in our favor. We can make the media and press our ally. It can be accomplished if we recognize the wisdom of doing it and pursue it assertively with spokespersons using the text Chiropractic in Healthcare (also called Medicine Monopolies and Malice) for its vital historical content and solid clinical documentation supporting chiropractic. By the way, the book has the endorsement of Attorney George McAndrews who spent a great deal of time reviewing it for accuracy. The most honorable thing that you can do Terry, is to publicly apologize to George McAndrews and the chiropractic profession and perhaps the few followers you have in chiropractic will respect you for it. Stop demeaning chiropractors chiropractic and the champions like George McAl1drews who have worked so hard for our benefit. <> <> Chester A. Wilk, D.C., P.C. I doubt that Dr. Rondberg will apologize but he can't hurt Attorney McAndrews who has won virtually every possible honor and award an attorney can receive, but George is concerned as to how Rondberg hurts Chiropractic! Selfish, destructive, inaccurate rambling by ill-informed fringe chiropractors cause at least as much harm as the infamous "Committee on Quackery" of the AMA did from 1962 through 1990. The best thing our profession can do is get good and angry and disgusted at how a small segment representing less than one tenth of one percent of chiropractors can influence the course of' 99.99% of the profession, and then unite and isolate Rondberg and those like him. How about uniting all of the rational elements in chiropractic? (The AFL/CIO did it and so why not chiropractic!) Intelligent, well-intended debate among well-meaning chiropractors is not only desirable but healthy if we can do it under a common roof. We can have unity without conformity. It is the nature of all health care professions to have differing views and certainly chiropractic is no exception.