Pollak, Oliver B.

James E. Pocius is the Chairman of the Medicare Set-Aside Practice Group. He acts as national Medicare counsel for several clients and has obtained over 1,000 Medicare Set-Aside Approvals. Most of his practice now concerns Medicare issues in both liability and workers' compensation cases. He negotiated the Medicare set-aside guidelines with CMS and maintains a national Medicare practice.
 
Jim joined Marshall, Dennehey, Warner, Coleman & Goggin in 1992, when the firm assumed his practice in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Since then, he has developed extensive experience in the defense of workers' compensation matters and defense liability claims.
 
Jim has litigated hundreds of workers' compensation cases in the state courts of Pennsylvania, and has also litigated hundreds of federal black lung cases over the last 25 years. He has provided counsel to our clients regarding workers' compensation settlements, workers' compensation issues nationally, and Medicare set-asides.
 
In 2004, Jim was named Legal Advisor to LRP's National Workers' Compensation Program and he is Editor-in-Chief of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce's Workers' Compensation Manual since 2005.
 
After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from Penn State University, Jim received his Juris Doctorate from Duquesne University in 1978. He served as a Judicial Law Clerk to Common Pleas Judge James J. Walsh until 1979, when he joined a defense firm in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Jim then had his own defense practice from 1987 until 1992.
 
Jim has addressed many groups on a national basis with regard to workers' compensation matters. He has been published nationally in Compleat Lawyer (the ABA publication) and has also been published in the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Quarterly with regard to the Heart and Lung Act and Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Act in Pennsylvania. Jim has lectured for the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, National Business Institute, Lorman Business Institute, and the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce and was an adjunct professor at Marywood College teaching workers' compensation in the ABA-approved paralegal program.
 
He served as Vice Chair of the Workers' Compensation Committee in the General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Section of the American Bar Association from July 2000 until August 2001. Jim is also a member of the Pennsylvania Defense Institute. He has been named a Pennsylvania Super Lawyer for 2006 and 2009 in the area of Workers' Compensation.
 
Jim is a Board Member for the St. Francis soup kitchen in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Significant Representative Matters:

• Successfully represented an employer defending a workers' compensation claim after a near fatal car accident. The plaintiff had severe brain damage. Jim was able to prove that the claimant was intoxicated at the time of the accident and received a verdict in favor of the employer.
  

• Represented an employer trucking firm with regard to a Medicare set-aside and was able to reduce the set-aside from $750,000 to $200,000.