An organization was working on my appeal for insurance denial of sex reassignment surgery in exchange for my name, face, and story if we won. Well, this was in May. In July, early August, however, they began to renege on that deal and said the organization would have no part in it, as my case was too small. Nevertheless, the staff attorney said he would keep working with me. When he broke several deadlines for when he was going to send the letter for the appeal, however, I publicly spoke out against this organization, and the staff attorney says he would have nothing more to do with me.
He said, though, that he would still email me the letter for the appeal, going against his boss's instructions not to, and then cut me off from all further aid. I thanked him for the letter and made sure to send it in to the insurance company. I told him I did what I had to to finally force him send me the letter.
But now I've got an option. If I forwarded that email he sent to me with the letter to his boss, I could get him into a lot of trouble and cause chaos in the organization as they could lose their single staff attorney, because he was not supposed to send me that letter at all.
So, I am weighing two options:
1.) Not getting someone in trouble who defied his boss to still help me, but who still did not keep his word on many occasions.
2.) A chance to create organizational chaos as revenge for the organization reneging on their deal, but getting someone into trouble who did want to help me (but who said he was going to leave the organization by January anyway).
What would the consequences for me be?
1.) The organization and I would go our separate ways. The organization would keep taking big name cases and making a name for itself. I could try to find legal help elsewhere. I would still speak out publicly against the organization for reneging on its deal, but I probably wouldn't get much satisfaction out of it as I doubt people would pay attention to me.
2.) The staff attorney would feel betrayed by me and may want revenge of his own. He may put me on some sort of blacklist for similar organizations saying, "Hey, don't help this person." I would derive satisfaction from watching the organizational chaos, if I could watch it. The staff attorney suddenly disappearing from the list of staff would be evidence of that, allowing me to get the confirmation I needed that I created chaos. Unfortunately, I wouldn't get to see very much of it, as most of it would probably take place behind closed doors. Also, the organization has been interviewing other attorneys for the position, so they could probably recover.
I'm guessing option 1, I won't get the attorney in trouble, as I would be stabbing someone in the back who legitimately tried to help me and I wouldn't derive much satisfaction from the organizational chaos because I would hardly be able to see any of it.
04 Sep 2014, 2:39 pm
