What Are Injury Lawyers?

 

When someone gets hurt in an accident, a personal injury attorney is usually one of the first people to call. Whether it involves a car, truck, motorcycle, or wrongful death, they can handle it. For a complete list of the types of cases that our personal injury law firm handles, visit our Practice Areas page or contact us to schedule a free consultation.

Reasons Why People Become Personal Injury Attorneys

One of the traits of a top-rated personal injury lawyer is curiosity. These attorneys usually have a keen interest in their clients and the incident that changed their life. A good personal injury lawyer is also interested in psychology, economics, medicine, and occupational therapy. An attorney will work with experts in these fields to identify all current losses in a bodily injury claim and those that will likely incur in the future.

 

While some people may enjoy studying only one topic, personal injury lawyers find satisfaction in challenging their intellect. These attorneys have a good understanding of many different areas associated with physical injury and an accompaniment of psychological damage. This is necessary for lawyers to succeed in civil cases on behalf of their clients.

What is Required to Become a Personal Injury Lawyer?

Like other attorneys, personal injury lawyers must pass the bar exam in their practice area. This comes after completing a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from an accredited law school. This means a law school is approved by the American Bar Association (ABA) for its compliance with standards set out by the ABA. However, passing the bar is only the start of an attorney’s training.

 

Lawyers that practice personal injury law exclusively are well-grounded and often take advanced medicine, anatomy, and physiology courses. Having background in these fields will help them become experts in biomechanics. Knowledge in biomechanics will help these attorneys make the connection between an accident and an injury. 

Personal injury attorneys must also stay on top of current rules of practice and procedure. This requires constant training in these fields, a drive to acquire knowledge, and how to apply valuable skills. These lawyers must be well-grounded in the “hard knocks” school and make genuine connections with their clients to better understand their cases. 

What Does a Personal Injury Attorney Provide to Clients?

Client interaction. A lawyer often deals with people who have suffered devastating physical and emotional losses. Clients have constantly been stressed out, and a cycle of pain, anxiety and depression result in not being at their best. A lawyer must be a steady presence and successfully guide their client through the legal process. They should be empathetic and understanding. The injury attorney needs to take the time to know the client and the client's friends and family. Without knowledge of the client and their personality and long-term losses, there is no way the lawyer can successfully hope to resolve a personal injury lawsuit.

Liability. An injury attorney must be aware of accident reconstruction and have access to re-constructionist and traffic experts when legal responsibility is contested. You will most likely meet with a re-constructionist if it is a motor vehicle accident. An injury attorney should visit every accident scene, interview witnesses, and ensure the police report has correct facts (they often do not!)

Here's a quick video describing how event reconstruction is achieved:

Causation. In addition to interviewing clients and witnesses, the injury attorney must possess good common sense as they have the burden to prove that a client's injuries were caused by the accident. In a legal sense, causation means "more probable than not." Often, medical personnel thinks of causation, as they were taught in medical school, as "scientific certainty." This is not the legal standard, and the auto accident injury lawyer must communicate the difference adequately to the medical personnel.

Damages. If the client's injury case goes before a jury, the attorney will ask the panel to "fix what can be fixed, help what can be helped, and make up for what cannot be fixed or helped." The treating doctors will testify about what caused the client's injuries with the accident injury lawyer's prompting. They will also attest to the reasonableness of the medical bills. If future medical bills are likely, he will hire a Life Care Planner (a nurse with advanced training in medical economics) to explain the expected value of those future bills. An excellent personal injury lawyer will also hire an economist to reduce future bills to present value.

Curious about what our life care planners can do? Check out this video:

What Else Can a Personal Injury Lawyer Do for You?

If the client has lost wages or will lose earnings in the future, the injury attorney will retain a specialist to discuss how the client's earning capacity has been affected.

Finally, accident injury lawyers will ask the jury to do what they can to make the client whole. To compensate for the client's pain and suffering and likely suffering in the future.

Even if you decide not to work with our accident injury law firm at this time, please take a moment to watch this helpful YouTube video on how to choose a top-rated attorney to handle your case.

Contact a Personal Injury Law Firm to Discuss Your Case Today

If you have been injured in an accident because of someone else's negligence, you need an injury attorney willing to work hard for you and your case. Look for a personal injury attorney who offers free consultations, works on a contingency fee basis, and has the experience, skills, and resources your case needs. Schedule a free case evaluation with one of our accident injury attorneys today at (916) 921-6400 or (800) 404-5400. Our firm's founder and attorney, Ed Smith, has worked exclusively in California personal injury law since 1982.

We are members of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum and the National Association of Distinguished Counsel.

Before hiring a personal injury lawyer, it is best to look at their client reviews and a list of past case results. See our client ratings on Avvo, Google, Yelp, and past cases on our Verdicts and Settlements page.

Editor's Note: This page has been updated for accuracy and relevancy [cha 9.14.22]

Photo by: Pixabay | "claimaccident " [cs 1389]

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