You start off with an event that brings you to call a lawyer. Perhaps you tried to resolve your claim with the insurance adjuster, became frustrated, and decide to seek representation. It may be a catastrophic injury or death and you or your family believes legal representation is necessary as soon as you have time to collect your thoughts. Whatever the situation, our office will take a lot of "behind the scenes" steps to attempt to maximize your recovery in your case.
Sometimes the extra work is necessary to even get the case resolved. Other times it is simply an effort to get our clients as much out of the recovery as possible.
Initially our job is to determine whether or not you have a viable legal claim. This involves a client interview and applying the facts to the law. A personal injury case has three major elements: Damages; Liability; and ability to recover if your case meets the first two criteria.
In a nutshell, damages are the legal claims that you may have as a result of whatever happened. Damages may include lost wages, medical bills, pain and suffering, mental anguish, disfigurement and physical impairment. Your case may involve property damages, punitive or exemplary damages and other elements of damages.
The liability is whose fault is the event. There are many cases and statutes that interpret and discuss liability issues, but in order to prevail in a negligence claim, there needs to be some fault or liability on someone whose acts or omissions caused you to have a claim. In Texas, the fault or liability may be broken down by the Court or jury in percentages, and just because some of the fault or liability is on the claimant, or injured party, this doesn't necessarily mean you can't recover.
A lot of action and work gets us to the point where your case may settle or go to trial. In the event of a recovery, where someone/insurance carrier is ready to write us a check for your claim, there is still a lot of work to do.
Most cases have medical liens or expenses that have to be paid back of out of the recovery. We work with health insurance carriers, Medicare providers, Medicaid providers, private hospital business offices, private physicians, radiologists, hospital emergency room contractors, EMS providers, health insurance subrogation companies and others to try to maximize your recovery.
When you get a recovery in a personal injury or other damages case, our office contacts each provider or agency that has an interest in the recovery and makes an effort to get their interest reduced thru a negotiation process. At times this process is relatively easy, and there are occasions that getting the liens reduced or compromised is the most difficult part of the entire case.
We initially deal with the liability insurance adjusters, the defense attorneys and then once recovery is in sight deal with multiple parties in an effort to maximize the recovery. Some cases may justify hiring an attorney just to deal with these issues. There are times where the adverse insurance carrier may offer a settlement that seems reasonable to you, but the liens and medical bills that have to be paid out of the recovery put a serious dent in what you get in the end. It is part of our job to try to ease the "serious dent" by working to attempt to compromise and negotiate what gets paid back our of your part in the end.