Being Prepared For Personal Injury Lawsuits

By Areelitaha Joahlanski

One way to help your attorney be more effective with filing personal injury lawsuits is to have the documentation ready that your attorney will need to process your claim efficiently. Your attorney will have experience and expertise in the steps involved in filing an injury suit and what you can expect from your settlement. They will also be able to give you an idea of how long the settlement will take to be resolved.

When you injury first takes place, it will be a great idea to start collecting information relative to the injury. A lot of the information that you can collect right away will take longer to get if your attorney has to get it at a later date. If you have experienced a slip or fall at a business, take pictures as soon as possible after the incident. This can be important if there is a hole or slippery area that is repaired shortly after your fall. Having pictures of the area as it was when you fell will make it easier for the attorney to evaluate whether the business was negligent.

Copies of medical records can be very difficult to get after the fact. However, if you ask for copies of treatment notes while you are at the doctor's office or in the emergency room, they can print a copy for you before you leave. This will save a lot of time and your attorney will need copies of this information. When the attorney has to request the information several weeks after an incident, it can extend the time to resolve the case.

When the medical records are given to your attorney, they will be able to accurately evaluate and assess the extent of your injury and what types of treatment may be needed on a long term basis. This will also help them to evaluate what the settlement should include. Sometimes a settlement will only include short term treatment, however, when the attorney can start their negotiations with accurate medication information they are able to represent your interest more effectively.

Sometimes the attorney will have you go to a 3rd party physician to have your injuries validated. When you take the treatment records from your previous doctor's visits, it will help the physician when they are conducting the physical. In some cases, the 3rd party physician will find other issues that may have been missed by the previous physician.

When you must miss work due to the injury, it will be important to get a doctor's verification of injury for both your job and your personal records. If you are off for an extended period of time because of the injury, it will be important to have these verifications in order and give a copy to your attorney.

There are specific deadlines that must be met when a personal injury lawsuit is being processed. It will be important that you are at each meeting that your attorney asks you to attend. When a meeting or deposition is missed it can extend the length of time before the suit is resolved by several months. Working with your attorney and making sure that you are following their advice and taking all the steps necessary will help you to resolve personal injury lawsuits much more quickly.

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Educate Yourself About Personal Injury Claims

By Michael Turner

When it comes to atonement for some unfortunate mishaps, a personal injury lawyer can be of great assistance.

Knowing how the law pertains to your situation is crucial, and a lawyer can help you with this. Though compensation and personal injury laws are similar, they can both be addressed in broad terms. However, each individual's case is unique, and a personal injury lawyer will know specifically how to deal with your situation.

When a lawyer indicates that they specialize in a particular area of practice, this does not imply that there is a specific board or agency who has authorized this person to serve as a qualified expert. Anyone who is seeking out a lawyer needs to investigate their options and evaluate the qualifications of the lawyer that they are interested in. Determining the need for legal services and the choice of a lawyer are extremely important decisions and should not be based solely upon advertisements or self-proclaimed expertise.

Let's take the example of injuring your knee while working, end up having surgery, and it results in permanent restrictions. Due to the limitations put on your job duties, your boss fires you, even though you've given him/her 22 years of service. Moreover, your physician tells you your knee has suffered a 20% loss.

The insurance company tells you that you will receive 44weeks of workers? compensation benefits. However, is this really all you are entitled to? Firstly, you should consult with an experienced and knowledgeable workers? compensation attorney because there may be other factors allowing for greater compensation.

A knee injury has specific parameters for payment allowance. This means that your knee injury would be paid a maximum of 220 weeks. Therefore the determination of 20 percent loss in the knee function translates to the same percentage of 220 weeks, or 44.

It is important to remember that you have a right to a second opinion. If your injury has had a greater impact on our life, for example if you are suffering from depression, a greater award may be owed. Should your back injury offshoot into other physical complications, you may be entitled to still greater compensation.

If there is also an older injury to another part of your body that would be considered "scheduled," including an arm, hand, foot, leg or knee you might be eligible for a Second Injury Fund claim and more benefits. You'd be wise not to take the insurance company's information at face value. A competent worker's compensation lawyer will be aware of all the mitigating factors that could mean a bigger settlement for you.

You may be wondering why employers persist in manufacturing reasons why they are not at fault, when it seems obvious to everyone else that they are in the wrong. The insurance companies expend a tremendous amount of effort to perpetuate the idea that most personal injury cases are simply a waste of time for the court system, because they are bogus.

Unfortunately, the insurance defense industry has been successful in perpetuating this myth in the minds of many potential jurors. Your jury has effectively been brainwashed by the insurance defense industry to automatically disbelieve claims made by injured parties.

And now the industry paid for defending insurance companies has reached the conclusion that they can trot out any ridiculous claims to exempt their clients from responsibility. Many jurors assume, due to their conditioning, that an injured party who files a lawsuit is just doing it to get some easy money. This problem is most prominent when the plaintiff's injury is not obvious or visible, for example, a back injury in a soft tissue area.

It is appropriate that the jury enter the case with an unbiased opinion. However, to be totally impartial and fair the jury needs to use that same level of skepticism to all of the purported defenses concerning the claim. Of course, our legal system entitles both complainants and defendants to be heard by a fair and impartial jury.

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