A lot of people who have been injured in a car accident want to know what they can do to obtain accountability and recover compensation for the injuries they have suffered. That’s a big question, and one that can have many answers. But it all starts with hiring an attorney who understands how to build a personal injury case. An experienced personal injury lawyer can help reduce the stress of trying to go through the process with the insurance company by yourself.
In this post, we hope to shed some light on the things that can be done to help build your personal injury case so that you can maximize your chances of recouping the money you need to treat your injuries, obtain financial stability during your recovery, and secure the compensation necessary to ease your pain and suffering.
Ways a good lawyer will build your case
There’s a lot your attorney will do to build your case. First, they will focus on proving liability, which means showing that the other party was at fault for the accident in question. But the work doesn’t stop there. Here are some matters your lawyer may need to address:
- Accident reconstruction: Accident reconstruction may be helpful in your case if your accident was complicated and it’s hard to tell who was at fault. This is often the case in multi-vehicle accidents. Here, an expert applies the laws of physics to the accident to come to a conclusion as to how the accident occurred and who is to blame. These individuals can be powerful witnesses at trial, but you have to be cognizant of the fact that the other side may have their own accident reconstruction expert testify, too.
- Discovery: Discovery is the process of obtaining information possessed by the other side. It can be wide-ranging in thoroughness. Your attorney can subpoena trucking logs from a truck company, for example, and depose anticipated witnesses in order to learn what they know and lock them into a story. Your lawyer will also request that the other side admit certain facts before trial, to narrow the scope of your case. Inadequate discovery can jeopardize your case.
- Expert testimony: While an accident reconstruction expert may be important to your case, he or she may not be the only expert your lawyer will turn to. While there may be experts available who can help you establish liability, they might also play an important role in demonstrating the extent of your damages. A medical professional, for example, may be able to give a judge and jury a realistic picture of your prognosis and treatment, which can help determine what kind of award should be given for medical expenses and pain and suffering.
- Statutory and case law analysis: An experienced personal injury attorney will know the law before going up against the insurance company. While this means understanding the basics of New Jersey’s negligence statutes, including comparative negligence, it also means understanding case law. By doing so, attorneys build more robust arguments based on the applicable statutes and binding legal precedent.
- The rules of evidence: By knowing the rules of evidence, your lawyer can better position you for success. They may be able to keep out evidence that is damaging to your case and get evidence before the judge and jury that might otherwise have been deemed inadmissible.
Take a holistic approach
These are just a handful of the issues that your attorney might have to confront in your personal injury case, especially when fighting to maximize your chances of obtaining full and fair compensation. The right lawyer may very well mean getting the right outcome.