Your First Meeting with a Personal Injury Attorney

If you have suffered from a serious injury due to someone’s negligence, you may have a lot of questions and may not know what to do first. Most people can go their entire lives without needing a personal injury lawyer. And that’s a good thing! But if you’ve been seriously injured in something like a car wreck, pedestrian accident, slip and fall, motorcycle accident, or due to medical negligence, then the best course of action is to at least talk to an experienced personal injury lawyer. An attorney whose practice is focused on helping injured people will be able to explain everything to you and develop a plan for winning full and fair compensation from the responsible party. Attorney Robert Bates has been helping seriously injured people in the Tri-Cities region of Tennessee for over a decade. Give us a call for a free initial consultation.

What to Bring to Your First Meeting With Your Personal Injury Lawyer

Personal injury litigation can be paper-intensive with a lot of documents that have to be collected and used to win your case. When you first meet with your lawyer, he or she will want you to bring several things to the first meeting, depending upon what type of case it is. Here are some things that you might have to bring:

● Insurance policies that might apply to the case such as health insurance, automobile insurance policies, homeowner insurance, renter’s insurance, etc.

● Medical records that have been given to you by your treating physicians. Your lawyer will send formal requests to your medical providers, but bring what you have in your possession.

● Medical bills, both paid and unpaid

● Relevant photographs of injuries, scars, property damage, accident scene, etc.

● Any information regarding witnesses or written statements that were given by witnesses or by you

● Any formal reports such as police reports or investigator reports

What Your Attorney Will Do at the First Meeting

Your new attorney will obviously ask questions about the case and take notes. Everything about the case will be discussed including what was happening before, during, and after. You will discuss your past medical history, whether it seems relevant or not. Your attorney might take photographs of you as well as any indications of the injury such as scarring, casts, slings, etc. The attorney will discuss rules of the case such as not talking to anyone about the case other than the attorney. All communications about the case should go through the attorney’s office. The attorney will explain that the client should never speak to anyone from any insurance company or investigator without having the attorney present.

The attorney will discuss the details of the fee agreement you will have to sign with the attorney. Most personal injury attorneys have their clients sign a contingency fee agreement where the attorney will not be paid a fee unless he or she recovers a settlement or jury verdict on behalf of their injured client. The standard contingency fee is ⅓ or 33.3% of whatever recovery at the settlement stage, but if the case is in litigation then the usual contingency fee is 40%. Now, these are usual fees but every lawyer is different and every case is different. Depending upon the case, these percentage fees might be different. The client should make sure to carefully read the fee agreement.

The fee agreement will also address the issue of litigation expenses. Again, most personal injury fee agreements will allow for the attorney to pay for any costs up front so the client does not have to pay anything out of pocket. The attorney will recover whatever costs are necessary from whatever recovery. The usual litigation expenses for personal injury cases are the following:

● Cost of medical records

● Police report

● Reproduction of photographs

● Cost of creating litigation exhibits

● Hiring of various experts such as an accident reconstruction expert, medical expert, vocational expert (wage loss) economist expert (wage loss)

● Deposition expenses such as court reporters and videographers

Robert BatesRobert is a Kingsport trial lawyer who handles car, truck and motorcycle wreck cases across the Tri-Cities. Every client gets his cell number.