Ability and Knowledge in Personal Injury Law

In general, it is helpful to contact an attorney as soon after the injury as possible. Remember that the insurance company will have trained investigators who will begin collecting evidence favorable to the insurance company almost immediately after they become aware there might be a claim. Among other things, an experienced plaintiffs personal injury attorney will advise the client to give no statements to an investigator since the investigator's primary purpose is to collect information that will be detrimental to the injured person's claim. An experienced personal injury attorney will also have an investigator begin collecting and preserving evidence favorable to the injured person almost immediately. The claim itself cannot be reasonably resolved until after the injured person has reached the maximum level of medical improvement and the actual settlement of the claim may take 1 to 2 years and sometimes even longer depending upon the injuries. However the collection and preservation of information favorable to support the claim should commence as soon as possible. The availability of witnesses, how much they can remember, the ability to take photographs, and numerous other factors involved in preserving evidence decrease with the passage of time and it becomes more difficult to preserve evidence that will support the claim. It is for this reason that speedy investigation is very important.

Unfortunately, there are many abuses on the part of attorney seeking personal injury clients. It is technically unethical for an attorney with whom you have never had previous dealings to personally contact you on the phone or in person to ask to represent you. It is similarly unethical for an attorney to retain another person to proceed in this fashion. It is not unethical for an attorney to send a letter to a person with whom the attorney has had no prior involvement advising that person of their background and offering to be of assistance to them. If you would not be thrilled about buying something from a door to door salesman or from a telephone solicitation, you would similarly be wise not to retain an attorney with whom you have had no prior experience who shows up at your hospital room or calls you on the phone shortly after you have been injured. Conduct of this sort is unethical and also indicates that the attorney is either motivated by greed or is under employed. The best way to retain a personal injury attorney is to find one based on the recommendation of other clients who have been satisfied with that attorney's work representing them in a personal injury claim or through other people who would be in a position to know the quality of the attorney's work. You also want an attorney who is as experienced as possible representing you. Once you have determined the name of an appropriate attorney, we suggest you interview or talk to that attorney and satisfy yourself that you can work with the attorney on pursuing your claim. We do not recommend you retain any attorney who attempts to pressure you in any way. Competent personal injury attorneys do not resort to any kind of high pressure tactics. We also suggest that you find out if the attorney represents exclusively injured plaintiffs or if the attorney also represents insurance companies. While many attorneys represent both insurance companies and injured plaintiffs, an injured party may very well prefer to have an attorney who only represents injured plaintiffs and not insurance companies.

There are attorneys and non-attorneys who will be happy to offer you an instant opinion on the value of your claim. A conscientious attorney will not be able to give you a very specific evaluation of the value of your claim until the attorney knows the extent of your recovery and also knows the evaluation of your treating doctor as to the nature and extent of future medical problems you may have arising out of your injury. This means that you will not have a realistic evaluation of the value of your claim until you have reached maximum medical improvement which typically takes 1 to 2 years. Every person is different and some people who appear initially to have a serious injury make an excellent or total recovery. Other individuals who have what appears to be a relatively minor injury may wind up making a poor recovery and having chronic pain associated with a permanent injury. Anyone who tells you that they can evaluate your claim immediately after you are injured is engaging in speculation.

All insurance companies have trained investigators who are called adjusters and whenever a potential liability situation arises, the insurance company will very quickly send a trained adjuster to gather evidence which will protect their insured and the insurance company. The adjuster’s job is to collect any evidence which will allow the insurance company to avoid paying the claim or pay as little as possible on the claim. Individuals who are injured invariably do not have at their disposal an investigator to perform a similar function to protect themselves. Frequently one of the first things that an adjuster for an insurance company does is attempt to interview the injured person and take a tape recorded or a written statement from the injured person.

Evaluation of a personal injury claim is one of the more difficult aspects for both the person who is injured and the attorney representing that person. The reason it is difficult is that there is not a precise gauge which determines the ultimate value of the claim. If the matter cannot be resolved and settled (95% of more of personal injury claims are resolved through settlement) the matter is ultimately submitted to a jury of six people. If the same evidence were submitted to ten different juries, it is almost certain that none of the ten would come back with precisely the same determination of the value of the claim. However, there are factors which are presented to the jury as evidence which are important in determining the value of a personal injury claim.

Attorneys generally do not charge clients for an initial consultation in representing them in a personal injury matter. If the attorney agrees to represent you, the representation is very commonly done on a contingent fee basis where the attorney receives no fee unless there is a recovery made. In appropriate cases many attorney's will also take any out of pocket expenses on a contingency but attorney's who indicate they will take expenses on a contingency on all cases they undertake will typically be more selective in which clients they will represent.