The Accident Report is typically available within a week or two after the accident. Accident
Reports contain very valuable information that is often critical to your case. Most states use
“coded” data on their forms, so you need the unique code sheet for your particular state in order
to “decode” much of the data listed. Additionally, you need someone who is well-versed in these
reports to interpret it for you. The Report may contain (1) an explanation of who caused the
accident and any citations given to the commercial truck driver, (2) witness statements, (3)
photographs, (4) location of the “black box” of the vehicles involved, (5) drug and alcohol
testing results, and (6) whether the airbags deployed and other critical vehicle status data.
Contact us, and we will help you obtain and interpret your Accident Report at no cost to
you.
We work on a contingency fee basis, and we advance all of the case expenses. This means you pay nothing out of pocket when you hire us to pursue your case. We are not paid any attorneys’ fees, or reimbursed for the case expenses we advance, unless we obtain a recovery for you. When the defendant(s) fund a settlement or trial verdict, we obtain our attorneys’ fees and case expenses from that recovery. Thus, you never have to pay anything out-of-pocket.
Finding and then selecting the best lawyer to handle your complex personal injury case is a difficult task. For most clients, this will be their only experience with litigation. As such, most clients have no experience with this task and do not know what to look for when selecting a litigator. The following are things to consider when making your selection.
In complex personal injury cases, like a trucking accident, often the two most important events in the litigation are the summary-judgment proceedings and mediation. Given the importance of these two events, your attorneys’ ability to handle these two events is perhaps the most important consideration when selecting an attorney.
Summary Judgment Requires Vast Experience in Legal Research and Writing
Most defendants will file a summary-judgment motion toward the end of the case, where the defendant asks the Court to dismiss your entire case based on some legal issue. This is often the biggest risk injured plaintiffs face in pursuing their case. Your lawyer must defeat this motion in order for you to obtain a recovery.
The defendant(s)’ motion will typically be 25-50 pages of complex legal briefing, heavily researched by the best defense attorneys in the country. To counter this, your lawyer must have vast experience in researching and writing lengthy, complex legal briefs to persuade the Court not to dismiss your case. Attorney Greg Evans spent the first seven years of his career at one of the country’s leading defense firms, devoting much of those seven years to researching and writing complex legal briefing. After being trained at the highest level on the defense side, Mr. Evans left that firm and has since spent the last 16 years researching and writing complex legal briefs on behalf of people seriously injured or killed in catastrophic accidents. Hence, we have vast experience handling this critically important aspect of your case.
Mediation Requires Ample Experience In Complex Negotiations
Most serious personal injury cases against large trucking companies are resolved through a settlement at a mediation. Thus, the mediation will be one of the most important events in your case. A mediation is a meeting between you and us as your lawyers on one side, and the defendants and their lawyers and their insurers on the other side, with a mediator in the middle. The mediator is a well-experienced attorney, often a former judge, who has extensive experience helping parties settle cases.
Given the importance of the mediation, your attorneys’ experience in handling complex negotiations will play a big role in determining whether you obtain the best possible recovery under the circumstances.
We have vast experience handling the most complex mediations — mediations where we represented numerous seriously and fatally injured plaintiffs, and negotiated opposite numerous large companies and their corporate lawyers and insurers on the other side. We know how to negotiate on your behalf at high-stakes mediations.
Examine the lawyers’ experience in complex catastrophic cases — cases where many people were seriously injured or killed. If the attorney has handled many cases against large companies on behalf of seriously or fatally injured people, then that attorney will have faced some of the country’s leading defense firms in challenging circumstances.
Examine whether each lawyer has experience in a variety of complex personal injury cases, not just large truck accident cases. For example, we have handled all types of complex personal-injury cases, including mass train fatalities, mass defective automobile fatalities, industrial accident fatalities, and many others.
Examine whether each lawyer has experience handling cases all over the country, which is an indication of extensive experience and a higher level of sophistication.
Examine whether each lawyer has relationships with leading experts.
Consider each lawyer’s financial condition. Lawyers who have substantial financial resources can afford to advance the often significant case costs required to prosecute a complex personal injury case against a large trucking company. Further, when a lawyer gives you advice on whether or not to accept a settlement offer or, conversely, reject a settlement offer and proceed to trial, you do not want the lawyer’s own financial hardships to potentially cloud that lawyer’s advice to you.
Once you retain us to pursue your case, your role can be minimal or hands-on, depending on what you prefer. Most clients prefer to be involved only when necessary, and updated on important developments, as they do not want to deal with the litigation on a daily basis. Thus, we only need the client’s assistance briefly at the beginning — to provide important facts so we can analyze their case and form a winning strategy — briefly in the middle — to participate in discovery — and briefly at the end — to attend mediation or a trial. That’s it. We fully handle your case on a daily basis with as little intrusion into your life as possible.
Alternatively, a few clients like to be more involved, and that’s fine too. We welcome each client’s participation at whatever level they prefer.
If mediation is not successful, then we speed toward trial as fast as possible. Trial dates are critical to obtaining a monetary recovery for you, either through a settlement at the very last minute before trial, or through a verdict at trial. Thus, if mediation fails, we work with the Court to find the soonest possible trial date.
