Personal Injury Lawyer
Anyone injured at the hands of another in a motor vehicle accident should retain counsel. I’ve been handling injury cases for almost 30 years. I would never contend that any lawyer has access to information that is somehow unavailable to others. Rather, a seasoned lawyer brings three key skills to the table.
Knowing where to look, being able to quickly and effectively isolate critical factual information, and then legal principles to that factual information in order to fully and effectively support the claim or defense of the client. The best injury and accident lawyers, through training and experience, have an ability to pinpoint and isolate relevant information and leverage that information to the benefit of their client. What the experienced car accident lawyer does with the information obtained sets them apart, and, indeed, is the reason they should be hired.
An Experienced Lawyer Knows Where and How to Obtain Information
It is not a case that a lawyer would have access to a cache of information hidden from the public at large. Rather, a skilled and experienced injury lawyer like can quickly identify the sources of information which will benefit their client. The lawyer will sift through that information, and select the most important or most influential facts- both positive and negative -and then use the information gathered in a manner that most thoroughly advances the clients interests.
A seasoned car accident attorney is going to be immediately familiar with the likely sources of pertinent details about their client’s injury claim. In virtually any catastrophic car accident, medical records and bills, driving records, licensing records, accident reports, police reports, insurance claim databases, location services, and of course legal documents must be consulted, analyzed and understood. These are all sources of data well known to a skilled personal injury lawyer, who does not need to reinvent the wheel for every case, but rather is familiar with who to ask, the questions to ask, and the time-frames within which to expect an answer.
A Seasoned Injury Lawyer Finds The Important Details
For the lawyer who sifts through volumes of data, it’s not really just a question of finding relevant information on a page full of information itself. It’s that, to be sure, plus also understanding how that piece of information fits into the larger picture of the legal claim or defense presented. In other words WHY the information is crucial to a case. Knowing not just what the piece looks like, but where it fits. If you have ever watched a doctor review a stack of medical records or an accountant review a stack of tax returns, you’ll know what I’m talking about.
Imagine a hypothetical scenario. An obviously injured individual presents at a lawyer’s office. That person, who did not have a lawyer before, was a pedestrian crossing a busy street and struck by a city vehicle. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the event, and the medical expenses incurred by the injured pedestrian are already astronomical- exceeding $100,000. The vehicle was owned by a city employee who was operating the vehicle as part of their job duties.
The unfortunate pedestrian has injuries to multiple parts of their body including their neck and their back requiring multiple surgeries. The city driver is arrested at the scene and charged with being intoxicated while driving.
There are numerous facts set forth above that make this- while a tragic case – also a very significant accident case due to the nature of the injuries involved. The lawyer knows the statute of limitations to file a claim is three years. An experienced attorney would immediately recognize that the key fact in this hypothetical is whether or not the city has been placed on statutory notice within one year from the happening of the event- and, if not, that notice must be given today.
An Experienced Accident Attorney Knows How To Use Information
Once the raw information is obtained, a skilled personal injury lawyer has the ability to parse through that information, identify and cull the vital factual detail and assemble this quickly and efficiently into a coherent whole, i.e. a legal claim. It is when the information is gathered and refined, the true role and need for an attorney comes to the fore.
A skilled and experienced attorney is able, through a process of both factual and legal analysis, coalesce and assemble that information into a consistent and concise legal claim. An effective lawyer will then present those pertinent factual details, initially, to an insurance claims adjuster. The methods of negotiating with a large insurance company are explored in other articles on the site. Suffice it to say at the conclusion of that process, there will either be an amicable settlement of the claim-or there will not.
An experienced lawyer will know if a reasonable offer is being made – or it is not. Any claim that cannot be resolved through settlement as a candidate for litigation. An experienced attorney will know where to file a lawsuit, when to file a lawsuit, how to file a lawsuit and after those initial steps have been taken, will know how to zealously, effectively and completely present those claims in a court of law.
