Get Smart! How to Be Successful in Your Personal Injury Case

Law Blog

If you have been injured and are pursuing a personal injury suit, you will want to be active in helping with your case. Even if you have a lawyer, you can be proactive in acquiring evidence and being compliant with your medical practitioner's advice.

Day One: Acquiring Evidence

Granted, on the day you were injured, you probably were thinking more about getting help than getting evidence for a lawsuit. However, there are things that you or your friends could do that would help from the initial incident onward.

Nowadays people carry phones with camera or video recording capabilities with them everywhere and hardly give it a moment's thought. After an accident involving injuries, you or a friendly onlooker could jot down the details of the incident. Some people are quite terse when writing but you never know what detail or colorfully written description might be helpful to your case. If you don't have paper and pen, use the note function on your cellphone if you have one.

A video taking in the scene might prove invaluable, and possibly an onlooker would be happy to record this for you. If not, you or a friend could return later and record a video of the scene.

Details that could mean a lot include:

  • License plate numbers
  • Signs or lack of them
  • Witnesses' names, phone numbers or addresses
  • Smells, sights, other sensory detail

You will need copies of any accident or Incident reports that were written at the time of the incident by yourself, police, other workers, supervisors and so on.

As You Recuperate

If there is a clinic your employer wants you go to, don't neglect this chore. It could end up making you lose your job if you need to miss work as you recuperate. You should also see your own doctor and any specialists he or she recommends. You will want to build up a record of getting the medical attention you need and doing what's necessary to heal. This makes you and your report of your injuries more credible to insurance companies, juries, and judges.

Keeping a written record of everything can be helpful to your attorney. Things to keep note of are:

  • Day-to-day effects of the accident on your life.
  • Medical visits and therapy.
  • Car repairs if it was a car accident, as well as the receipts.

Legal Representation to Move Forward

Soon after the incident, you should look for an attorney to represent your interests and develop a strategy to get a good settlement. The other party may be tempted to destroy evidence that could hurt your case. An attorney can write a letter putting the other party on notice that spoliation of evidence won't be considered "accidental."

Experienced attorneys such as Frame & Co Injury Law are trained to know the true value of a case and won't be taken in by insurance companies who want to settle quickly and as cheaply as possible. Also your attorney will be a valuable source of advice on things you can do to improve your chances of getting the best settlement offer.

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13 November 2014