Legal Issues

Legal Services

Dr. Wilson has a background as a veterinarian who practiced clinical medicine in California veterinary
hospitals for 16 years. Because of his law degree from UCLA and interest in the subject, he has written
and spoken extensively on animal and veterinary legal issues. While Medical Director at the small animal
hospital at the University of Pennsylvania he reviewed over 100 legal consents for clinical studies
performed by faculty and residents. Thanks to the generosity of the Dean's Office at Penn, he has been
able to asset over 300 Penn students, interns and residents from the school with the review of their
employment contracts as well as coaching as to how to proceed with negotiations. In addition to these
people, Dr. Wilson has reviewed and/or constructed employment contracts for over 500 other new grads,
interns, specialists, and practice owners/managers all across the USA.

As a result of Dr. Wilson's advanced veterinary medico-legal knowledge, he has provided expert witness
opinions covering challenges to ownership of dogs, veterinary malpractice, the reasonableness of
noncompete agreements, the legal use of drugs in animals, and animal bite cases.

Consultative:

Assistance with employment contracts for practice owners and/or managers,associate
veterinarians, graduating students, board eligible and boarded specialists, and the
attorneys who are providing legal counsel for such parties;

Drafting specialized language for production-based compensation clauses in employment,
contracts and providing coaching for practices that are attempting to implement this method
of payment for generalists and specialists;

Customizing and implementing the use of written legal consents in veterinary practices;

Consultations with veterinary industry regarding limiting the liability for products that
companies manufacture related to zoonotic diseases or the use or misuse of their products
or medical devices; and

Interviews with the media regarding the rationale for written legal consents for veterinary
practices, the enforceability of restrictive covenants in employment contracts, and new or
changing precedents in animal and veterinary law.

Expert Witness Opinions:

Dr. Wilson has had lengthy training and experience as a small animal associate and practice owner.
This has been supplemented by his law degree and years as an author on animal law and veterinary
medico-legal topics. He spent nearly ten years providing consultative advice for the American
Association of Veterinary State Boards as well as many individual state boards.

He also has extensive experience researching, writing about, and teaching animal law, medical records,
the use of written legal consents, the legal use of veterinary drugs, and professional negligence.
All of this, plus his time spent drafting over thirty expert witness opinions, testifying in
court on over ten occasions, and his skill as a writer provide the background for his expert
witness consultations and opinions. The subjects upon which he provides such work include:

Reviews of background materials for parties seeking opinions on the enforceability of
noncompete agreements contained in employment contracts or found in practice purchase
and/or sales documents;

Medical record and case narrative reviews and opinions regarding allegations of veterinary
malpractice or incompetence, e.g., assisting and advising the attorneys who are
representing veterinarians facing civil suits or state board disciplinary hearings;

Locating state statutes and local ordinances that address animal ownership, reviewing factual
settings, and providing opinions regarding disputes involving animal ownership; and

Evaluating applicable state board minimum standards of care and comparing those with
standards of care and guidelines published in the veterinary literature that might well
be applied to future lawsuits for veterinary malpractice.