You've Been Sued for Malpractice — What to Do First (and What Not to Do)

By John Mahoney · Founder, MedLegal AI · June 18, 2026

Being served with a malpractice suit is one of the most stressful moments in a physician's career. The fear, the shame, the isolation are real and well-documented — it even has a name in the literature: medical malpractice stress syndrome. If you're reading this in the first hours after being served: take a breath. Most claims are far more survivable than they feel right now. Here's a calm, practical guide.

This is general information, not legal advice. Your assigned defense attorney has the final word on everything below.

In the first 48 hours — do these

1. Notify your malpractice carrier immediately. This is the single most important step. They assign and pay for your defense counsel. Don't wait.
2. Preserve everything; alter nothing. Do not touch, "clean up," or add to the medical record. After-the-fact changes are the fastest way to turn a defensible case into a losing one.
3. Say nothing about the case to anyone but your attorney. Not colleagues, not the patient, not on social media.
4. Write down your own recollection of the care — privately, for your attorney — while it's fresh.

What NOT to do

• Don't contact the plaintiff or their family. Ever.
• Don't discuss the facts with colleagues — those conversations can become discoverable, and they're rarely as confidential as they feel.
• Don't post anything. Assume anything you write can end up in front of a jury.
• Don't try to "handle it yourself." Your carrier and counsel do this for a living.

What's coming — and why the deposition matters most

Most claims are not as dangerous as the fear suggests. The data is reassuring: a large share of claims are dropped or dismissed, most of the rest settle, and most cases that reach a verdict are won by the defendant physician.

But there's one moment where a defensible case is most often won or lost: your deposition. It's where opposing counsel will test you for hours, looking for a single damaging admission. The witnesses who do well aren't the smartest doctors in the room — they're the ones who learned a skill: answer only what's asked, never guess, never argue, stay calm. That skill is learnable, and it's practiceable.

You can practice — privately, before it's real

You don't have to walk into your deposition having never been cross-examined. We built a confidential AI that questions you exactly like opposing counsel will — and coaches the habits that sink depositions — so you can rehearse, privately, as many times as you want, before your prep with your attorney.

It's strictly practice and composure — never legal advice, and we never tell you what to say. Practice on de-identified facts; nothing is stored. (And unlike typing your case into a public chatbot — which courts have treated as discoverable — it's built to be confidential.)

You're going to get through this. Prepared and calm beats brilliant and rattled, every time.

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