Lawyer Defends Practice in UCI Cases

* Please allow me the opportunity to set the record straight concerning the story on lawyers taking advantage of the UCI fertility clinic scandal (July 24).

As a lawyer, it would be unethical for me to “swing into action,” as you put it. What does that statement mean? Actually, I watched the breaking story in the papers and on the news with interest like everyone else. I was honored when a local jurist brought the Challenders into my office seeking experienced counsel to represent them in their case of stolen embryos. He did so because of my 32 years of experience as a lawyer and my reputation for being able to handle high-profile cases with dignity.

Providing “media training” for my clients was also criticized. It was obvious that when I filed suit, the media would put a huge number of cameras and reporters in the face of the uninitiated family coming forward to seek justice. It seemed a compassionate move on the part of caring counsel to assist a vulnerable client with the media. They might well have camped out in their front yard with searchlights trained on their home if they did not come forward.

Providing clients with a four-hour course of how to relate to the camera and put their thoughts into short sentences, instead of long rambling statements, was important. They also needed to be able to talk to the camera while listening to questions, sometimes through an earphone, for satellite broadcast. These are not acting lessons. The purpose was to make them more comfortable in a very confronting and frightening environment. Facing the media can be so intimidating that the uninitiated litigant often chooses not to come forward to speak out against injustice.

We received a good deal of praise from the television stations covering the story. Our office provided personal, one-on-one appointments with both the Challenders and the Porters, instead of a “press conference” starring the attorney, as you suggested.

Why criticize a thoughtful, considerate lawyer for adding some grace to the disgrace of a media frenzy, and the often callous questions posed to clients in a delicate but public matter?

THEODORE S. WENTWORTH

Newport Beach