GERRITSEN BEACH - A Brooklyn-born attorney who never attended law school followed his own path to success in the courtroom, but he makes no bones about sharing his secrets to winning medical malpractice cases.

And it may be deceptively simple.

"You have to know the medicine," Jim Wilkens told the Eagle during an interview at Clark Street Diner. "You can be versatile, nothing surprises you - you can utilize that information."

Despite his lack of a traditional law school education, Wilkens was able to pass the bar and become a successful litigator under his own steam.

He rose from humble roots to winning the biggest medical malpractice verdict in the country - twice - and working at the prestigious firm Duffy & Duffy, in Long Island.

And he's ranked in "The Best Lawyers in America" and the "The Best Lawyers in New York" (released by the "Best Lawyers" peer-review publication).

This native of Flatbush is a unique character in the legal profession, and has been described as an "Abraham Lincoln," because he is largely self-educated. He's also a friendly and unassuming man who seems to consider every success in the courtroom an unexpected surprise.

"I tried my first medical malpractice case when I was 46," Wilkens explained. At that point, he had worked in law firms for long enough that he was able to take and pass the bar exam although the laws have since changed.

His first suit was for a teenage boy who had permanent and severe digestive problems due to premature birth.

"I didn't want to embarrass myself," he said. "I was so scared, I prepared intensively." After months of research in medical libraries, Wilkens had learned all about labor, delivery and tocolytics, a medicine that may have prevented the premature birth.

He ended up winning a stunning $3 million jury verdict, even though the case was being tried in Civil Court, which typically only hears cases involving sums of up to $25,000.

To his colleagues, Wilkens had proven his chops. For him and his wife, who he lives with in Gerritsen Beach, it was a sudden light at the end of the tunnel after years of debt.

"I couldn't believe it," he recalled. "That was when my career took off."

His Own Path

Wilkens has never moved too far from the home where he grew up, but he has traveled a long way in his career ambitions.

Born in Flatbush with his parents, he was a student at Nazareth High School and went to Marist College in Poughkeepsie. Wilkens expected to become a firefighter like his father. After failing a medical test, Wilkens said that he had "no backup plan."

But Wilkens did follow a different side of the character of his father, who loved to debate with his son over the dinner table.

In the 1970s, Wilkens became a legal bookkeeper at Cullen and Dykman LLP at the firm's historic Brooklyn Heights office, which runs along Clinton Street from Montague Street to Pierrepont Street. The first floor has since been occupied by Chase Bank, but the firm still has offices there.

Wilkens moved between various offices before taking and passing the bar exam. (The laws have since changed, but at the time paralegals and clerks with five years of experience were eligible for the exam.)

Wilkens, however, still had some trouble getting work because of his "lack of a pedigree." He tried solo practice: "It was a disaster. Every year, I went deeper and deeper in debt," he said.

Debt became a problem for Wilkens. His wife, a teacher, had medical problems. He also said that he "made some pretty bad financial decisions."

Wilkens decided that what he really wanted was to get back into court. He began visiting seminars and trial-advocacy exercises at the National Institute for Trial Advocacy, some of which lasted for 12 hours. "You were on your feet all the time doing parts of cases. It was great," he recalled.

Soon, Wilkens was introduced to John Fitzgerald of the firm Fitzgerald & Fitzgerald, who encouraged Wilkens to get involved in trials. Wilkens recalled Fitzgerald as a great source of encouragement. "John's position was, you can learn anything you need to," Wilkens said. "He gave me opportunity to do things that, with my lack of pedigree, no one else would let me do."

Wilkens' first medical malpractice case, described above, brought him his first real victory - and in some ways, a turning point in his life.

"It felt right to be in court, to be doing that kind of work. It felt like something I was supposed to be doing," Wilkens said. "I remember wondering if anything like that would ever happen again."

Success in court, however, continued to come to Wilkens. He went on to win two more cases in Nassau and Westchester counties, and received the two biggest verdicts that had ever been in awarded in those venues.

Talented But Not Cocky

Wilkens doesn't possess the bravado or cockiness of most successful trial lawyers. He was caught off guard by his first successes, but came to realize that his willingness to prepare obsessively,and his broader life experience gave him an advantage both in the courtroom and with jurors. "I had the sense that maybe this wasn't happening in spite of me," he said.

In Brooklyn Supreme Court before Justice Jules Spodek, Wilkens won the biggest verdict in the country at that time - $94.8 million in a premature birth case. (However, the Appellate Division, Second Department on Monroe Place later threw out all but a few million dollars.)

And in 2007, he outdid himself by winning the biggest verdict in the country again - $107 million in Queens Supreme Court, for a man who lost the ability to create new memories after an incorrect doctor's diagnosis. (That verdict was also thrown out and an appeal is pending.)

As a successful malpractice litigator, Wilkens has an interest in dispelling some myths about the profession.

"Malpractice doesn't start in the courtroom," he said. "I'm not there when the doctor makes a mistake." While Wilkens made it clear that he has great respect for the medical profession, he said that malpractice accounts for less than one-quarter of one percent of health care costs across the country. He pointed out that there are 150,000 to 200,000 deaths every year because of "out-and-out negligence on the part of doctors."

"That's the World Trade Center happening every week," Wilkens said.

With his skills, knowledge and ability, Wilkens' focuses his work on helping people who often suffer from permanent problems.

"I represent people who have had gut-wrenching tragedies happen in their lives," he said. "I'm their shot at getting something back."

Life Is Less Stressful Now

Wilkens is very frank about the "bleak" period he and his wife went through, when they never thought they would be out of debt. He says her support kept him going.

"I've really always looked to my wife as a source of strength," he said. "Sometimes when it's 2 o'clock and I want to go to bed, but I should read a few pages more to help me for tomorrow - I think of her." His success has done little to change their lifestyle, Wilkens said, except that "life is less stressful now."

The couple live in the same house in Gerritsen Beach they did 20 years ago, and they spend time with their relatives across the city and metropolitan area.

Coincidentally, Wilkens' parents moved out of their Flatbush apartment after he was born. His wife's parents moved into the exact same apartment a short period later, and she was born in the same apartment.

"People always say it was fate that we got together," he said, laughing.