Lawyers understand how aspects of the legal system could affect a case’ s worth. That fact helps to explain why the lawyer’s view of a case’s value could differ markedly from the view of the client, the individual that has introduced the associated personal injury claim.
Facts on top of the mind of an injured client
• Loss of income, due to need to stay home and recover from injury
• Damage to property, typically an automobile
• The medical bills that keep arriving in the mail
• The out-of-pocket expenses that have diminished the size of the client’s bank account such as money paid for parking at various medical facilities or cost of transportation to various medical appointments
• Pain suffered at time of accident; discomfort experienced as result of invasive procedure, whether used for diagnostic purposes or as a treatment.
Additional facts, the ones that lawyers consider when estimating a case’s worth
What a study of earlier trials has shown about jury verdicts in cases, such as the one that the lawyer must handle for a given client
What might be known about any tendencies of the judges that hear the arguments within a given judicial district
—Some tendencies might reflect the make-up of the judge’s family: A judge with a young daughter could be harder on a man that has behaved improperly with a woman.
—Some tendencies could echo a leaning that became apparent at the time of an earlier decision.
Clients should trust their lawyers to seek a fair and reasonable settlement
A client’s desire to seek revenge on the responsible party could hamper a lawyer’s effort at obtaining a fair settlement. It might force the claims process to move from the negotiation stage to the stage of litigation.
Clients’ obligations include that of sharing all the relevant information with their chosen attorney. A client’s decision to withhold some fact could weaken the attorney’s argument, and diminish the value of any possible settlement.
What could happen if that trust were lacking in a potential client?
Some members of the public fail to appreciate the goal of the legal system, the goal of helping a victim get back to where he or she was before. As a result, those same men and women hesitate to hire a Personal Injury Lawyer in Guelph.
Their reluctance to hire an attorney could keep them from obtaining a fair settlement. That would certainly be the case, if one of the occupants in a car that had been hit were a child or a teenager. The case’s facts could get lost or forgotten by the time that the same child or teen had become an adult.
Parents should keep that fact in mind, whenever a minor has been involved in an automobile accident.
