Any claimant that feels compelled to settle a dispute that was the result of a personal injury should give serious thought to certain points. Those points highlight the different topics that claimants should discuss with their attorney.
A personal injury attorney might share certain predictions with a potential client.
Ideally, the attorney’s experience has exposed him or her to cases that were similar to the one that has been presented by the possible new client. For that reason, the same attorney should have expressed some sense for whether or not the wannabe client’s case appears to be one that could allow the claimant/victim to come out as a winner.
By the same token, a personal injury lawyer in Brampton, should be able to offer insight into the types of challenges that any client-lawyer team would confront, while pursuing the claims’ process.
After reviewing any presented evidence, and gaining some sense for the basis of the other side’s argument, the same lawyer should be able to comment on the strength of each side’s evidence and argument.
Money issues ought to be addressed during any consultation between an accident victim and a personal injury attorney.
Most personal injury lawyers seek a contingency fee. During the consultation, the details on that fee should be explained. That would include details such as the percent of the client’s winnings that would go to the legal consultant (the lawyer).
Claimants often have in their mind a figure that represents their lowest acceptable offer. That figure could be shared with the consulted lawyer, before that same lawyer’s staff had received any paperwork that related to the claimant’s case.
Lawyers’ discussions with any possible clients often touch on 2 other important issues.
—The policy limits, as stated in the terms of the defendant’s policy. Those limits could keep any claimant or plaintiff from enjoying as large a reward as he or she had hoped to receive.
—The nature of the defendant’s resources: That would be particularly important if the defendant had failed to purchase any insurance. Those resources would include the size of the defendant’s salary, along with any information on his/her other sources of income.
A consultation could work to uncover any problems that had to be corrected as soon as possible.
It could be that the victim had done a poor job of gathering evidence. In that case, a lawyer could try to expand the list of evidentiary materials.
It could be that a physician had not examined each occupant of the car that had become the target of a forceful impact. That could open the door to an argument from the defense lawyers. An attorney’s skills should be used, in order to fight that argument.
