Fertility Clinic Case Is Magnet for Attorneys : Law: They seek clients in UC Irvine controversy and cite the attraction of a new legal field. But critics fear the former patients may lose out in the scramble.

When the headline-grabbing allegations of possible human egg thefts broke at UC Irvine in May, Newport Beach attorney Theodore S. Wentworth swung into action.

Within weeks, he had signed one local couple as clients, put them through a crash course in media relations and sat them in front of reporter after reporter to field intimate queries about allegations that the wife’s eggs may have been given to another woman.

Last week, Wentworth said, he paid to fly a second couple, Budge and Diane Porter, from Omaha, and sent them through the same three-hour, $1,800 course. The lawyer stood by during a series of TV interviews at his office as the quiet couple relived the trauma of learning that their “genetic legacy” might have been stolen.

Praising Diane Porter’s promise as a media draw, Wentworth confided to a reporter: “She’s set up now so she can do satellite.”

Wentworth has positioned himself in the limelight as well. In response to the burgeoning fertility scandal, he and other attorneys have leaped into the fray, describing themselves as the defenders, protectors and promoters of vulnerable victims of egg-swapping.

It’s the bio-tech version of a train wreck, with UC Irvine alleging that about 35 patients may have been involved in improper egg transfers at clinics in Orange and Garden Grove. And the controversy represents a chance for attorneys not just to make money, but to make a name for themselves as the first experts in a new field of law.

“Know your legal rights regarding improper transplants/egg misuse,” reads Irvine attorney Lawrence Eisenberg’s advertisement in area newspapers, promising not to charge potential litigants if no money is won.

“It’s on the forefront of biotechnology and the law,” Eisenberg said. “There’s no precedent. That’s what makes it challenging.”

Eisenberg added: “You have the right to know what happened to your bio-materials.”

But ethicists and other attorneys worry that the patients’ best interests may fall by the wayside in the scramble for celebrity.

“It’s just a combustible mixture,” said Dr. Arthur Caplan, a University of Pennsylvania bioethicist. “You take people who are naive and mix them in with lawyers who are going to try to maneuver to get every advantage from a media audience which can’t wait for the next sad or pathetic tale. . . . It might burst into a conflagration not good for vulnerable people.”

In very public fashion, UC Irvine administrators have accused Drs. Ricardo H. Asch, Jose P. Balmaceda and Sergio C. Stone of taking patients’ eggs without consent, then refusing to turn over the medical records that would help substantiate the misconduct. The doctors have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and say they have attempted to cooperate with the university.

Balmaceda’s attorney, Patrick Moore, said he has responded in the media simply to rebut the allegations against his client. But Moore said he was “sickened by the advertising, the apparent chasing of patients” by lawyers seeking clients.

“I don’t understand how exposure in the national media benefits the client,” Moore said. “It certainly benefits an attorney in the situation. It’s free advertising for other patients.”

But attorneys for former patients say they are helping to give their clients a voice in the escalating legal battle.

Going public is a way to put a human face on the complex, clinical allegations of bio-tech thievery, Wentworth said.

“It helps to establish a dialogue--that there is somebody there, a person who is breathing and injured, something real other than numbers on a page,” said Wentworth, who has seven clients and is “still signing them up,” he said, mostly as a result of news reports that include his name.

Diane Porter and her husband Budge, a former University of Nebraska football player who was partially paralyzed in a gridiron accident, said Wentworth’s insistence on media training has been helpful in fielding interviews.

“I think it helped us to formulate our thoughts and not ramble so much,” Diane Porter said.

Some attorneys involved in the cases warn of the dangers of going too public with their clients’ anguish.

When the cases land in civil court, Santa Monica attorney Larry Feldman said, any smart defense attorney would seize on the idea of media training and use it to attack a former patient’s sincerity.

The defense could argue to a jury that the former patients “can’t be that upset if they need to go to media school to learn how to act,” said Feldman, who represents two couples who allege that eggs were taken without their permission. Feldman said he has had inquiries from about 20 potential clients.

Nearly all of the attorneys involved said part of the allure of handling the fertility cases is the potential to become a key figure in biomedical reform.

“I’m going to be working on some federal legislation . . . to prevent this from happening again,” said Santa Ana attorney Melanie Blum, who represents at least a dozen former patients. “I’ve already been in contact with the congressmen who are doing that.”

Since the scandal became public in May, Blum said, she has developed “a passion” for her cases, working 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

She recently was accompanied by a television news crew as one of her sobbing clients retrieved frozen embryos from a fertility clinic in Laguna Hills run by the UC Irvine doctors.

Unlike the other attorneys, however, Blum also is representing half a dozen key employees and former employees of the fertility clinics--some who may have witnessed the alleged wrongdoing.

Legal ethicists expressed concerns about mixing clients whose interests may some day conflict.

“Down the line you could have problems,” said Dennis Curtis, a legal ethicist at USC.

Blum said she doesn’t believe her representation of clinic employees and former patients is a conflict. She said she has obtained waivers from her clients that allow her to represent them all. It is an asset to all her clients, she said, that she has a range of information about the scandal.

The attorneys say the financial rewards of taking on the fertility cases remain uncertain. Most say they are not taking new cases unless the patients already have received medical records that indicate a problem.

Wentworth, however, doesn’t see any limits on the financial compensation a strong case could bring--especially given the vast UC liability pool of $94 million. He said he is not accepting clients unless “they show me a case that has a value of more than $100,000.” He said he is not looking at the cases purely as medical malpractice, but as theft and fraud, comparing the potential damage awards to those obtained in sexual abuse cases.

Like his colleagues, Wentworth said he is thrilled to be in on one of the most intriguing and well-publicized legal disputes in biomedical history.

“Do I feel lucky?” he asked. “It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful to come into work each day.”

Times staff writer Michael G. Wagner contributed to this story.