How a Personal Injury Case Should Progress

For more info and resources go to: https://shrablelawfirm.com/


What Lawyers Don't Tell You - Episode #2

In this podcast episode, I share some insight into how a Personal Injury Case should progress, especially in the early stages

I'll be talking about medical liens, lost wages, and the difference between pre-suit and litigation. It's super important to document everything and support demands properly to increase the chances of settling without having to go through litigation.

I'll be covering the importance of properly supporting demands with documentation like incident reports, photos, and medical records. You'll also learn about the potential pitfalls of medical liens and the importance of properly documenting lost wages.

Overall, this episode of my podcast is packed with useful information for anyone going through the personal injury claims process. If you understand the early stages of a case and document and support your demands correctly, you'll increase your chances of success.



Timestamps
Intro: 0:00
My Accolades as a Lawyer: 0:20 
How a personal injury case should progress: 3:30
What is a Medical Lien?: 04:00
The Importance of Documenting Lost Wages: 10:05
Litigation vs Trial: 14:42
Unrealistic Timeframes and Expectations: 23:24
Conclusion: 36:27




Hey, I'm Beau. I'm an attorney and I've been practicing personal injury for the last ten years, both on the plaintiff's side and the defense side. What I'm hoping to do is provide a unique perspective on personal injury law and provide some education to both consumers and potential clients so that they can make better decisions.

For more info and resources go to: https://shrablelawfirm.com/

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

00:00:00:18 - 00:00:29:11 Unknown Hey, I'm Beau. I'm an attorney. I've been practicing a personal injury for the last ten years, both on the plaintiff's side and the defense side. What I'm hoping to do is provide a unique perspective to personal injury law and provide some education materials both to consumers and potential clients so that they can make better decisions. All right. We're back for the second time on this podcast, and I got a lot of feedback both at the house and from Friends.

00:00:29:11 - 00:00:50:14 Unknown So initially what I want to do is go back and clean up just a few quick things. My wife told me that per usual, I don't do a good job of selling myself. I didn't do a good job bragging on myself when I talked about the kind of my academic career and path to where I'm at now. I gave you all the the bad things.

00:00:50:14 - 00:01:14:01 Unknown And those are the things that stick out in my mind. I really don't talk about the good things. Maybe that's a personal flaw that I have, but in any event, I've been told to make sure that I touch upon those things. So real quick, rehash, you know, real rocky start high school college and start off great. And we kind of went from there.

00:01:14:01 - 00:01:52:02 Unknown My last two years in college, I had a 4.0 did it really well scored in like the 87th percentile, I think on the LSATs, which that's really good considering that the bell curve part of it, you know, when I finally got to law school after the military, I was on the dean's list. Every single quarter ended up getting a a merit scholarship on top of the scholarship I had prior to that, I scored I don't remember what the scale on the dnb was, the multi multi state bar exam, the multiple choice part was.

00:01:53:05 - 00:02:22:17 Unknown But I do know that I scored well enough on just the multiple choice part that I could really just write my name on the essays. There was a guy I was working with at the time. He was real impressed by it and he would tell you the score he probably remembers. I don't flash forward. We went out on my own pretty much a year after I got sworn into the bar, and we've been doing well ever since.

00:02:22:17 - 00:02:50:19 Unknown I cannot complain at all. The colleagues in the bar have really welcomed us in and embraced me. Some older lawyers have taken me under their wing and helped me out as far as just point me in the right direction on things and, you know, I was really proud that, you know, in your fifth year as an attorney, you become eligible to be rated by Martindale Hubbell.

00:02:50:19 - 00:03:12:06 Unknown This is something that attorneys work their entire career for, to be in to have an 80 rating. There are 20 or 30 year lawyers that don't have that. I was able to get that in my fifth year, which was a big thing for me. And then we were raided by super lawyers Every year since then, I have a great client base.

00:03:12:09 - 00:03:30:00 Unknown I can't complain at all. I'm entirely blessed with with where we're at, but I just want to get that out there because last time I made it sound like, Hey, we got here by the skin of our teeth, you know, that's not necessarily the case. I was just giving you some some flavor for for what my background is.

00:03:30:00 - 00:03:57:01 Unknown So enough of talking good about herself. Let's talk about the actual topic at hand. So what I want to talk about today, you know, last time we talked about, you know, the overarching theme was how to go about selecting a lawyer. And I want to move past that today to talk more about how a case should progress in the early stages and things that you should look out for.

00:03:58:04 - 00:04:24:19 Unknown So one big topic right now are is medical lanes. So what is a medical lane? Well, if someone's involved in an accident or shooting or however they may get hurt, clearly they have to go get medical treatment. Well, their access to medical treatment may be hindered by a lack of health insurance. So really, what I want you to think of is two separate paths.

00:04:24:19 - 00:04:46:09 Unknown There's the the path where you have health insurance and pass that path that you do not have health insurance. Those two paths should never cross, because if they cross, you've got a real problem. We'll talk about that. So I'm going to leave the health insurance alone. You know, you go see the doctors that you that accept your health insurance, you treat and hopefully you get better.

00:04:46:14 - 00:05:21:23 Unknown You get back to where you are. But what do you do if you don't have access to doctors? How do you how do you do this? So there are medical providers out there that will treat you on what's called a lane. So you go see Doctor Joe, Chiropractor Joe, physical therapist, Joe, whoever it may be. And you sign a document that basically says this in exchange for the care received, you will pay back Dr. Joe out of anything that you recover in your case.

00:05:22:23 - 00:05:44:15 Unknown But in the event that you don't recover anything in your case, you still owe Dr. Joe that money personally, that that's one thing that's often left out. You know, people are sent to doctors, chiropractors and whatnot by their attorneys, and all they're told is, hey, we'll pay for this out of the case. We'll pay for this out of the case.

00:05:46:00 - 00:06:08:15 Unknown I've never seen a lane that says if you don't recover in your case, you don't owe the money to the doctor. They can't say that because if it did, then Doctor Joe's credibility is just completely out the window. You have to be personally liable for it in the event that you don't recover. So that's one thing people need to know about.

00:06:08:18 - 00:06:33:07 Unknown You can't be personally liable for these lanes in the event that you don't recover. Second thing is you need to be aware of the billing rate. So say you go to a doctor and you have health insurance. Well, your health insurer has a contract with that doctor that sets out a fee schedule. So a band aid cost this.

00:06:33:23 - 00:07:00:21 Unknown You know, all these different things they can do for you. There's codes for them and they cost a certain thing. And those are those prices are negotiated in mass by your health insurance company. But when you go try it online, you don't have that mass negotiation power. You don't have a national health insurance company negotiating on your behalf.

00:07:01:02 - 00:07:28:00 Unknown It's just you and Dr. Joe. Dr. Joe may have a separate fee schedule for people like you. People who do not have health insurance and people who are treating on a lane. More often than not, that fee schedule is artificially inflated. There are doctors that are charging five and 800% of what they would charge other people for the exact same procedure.

00:07:29:15 - 00:08:12:10 Unknown I've seen surgeries cost $200,000 when they should cost about 42,000. I've seen injections that should cost $100, costing thousands of dollars. So you need to be real careful about those fee schedules. You need to understand that the person or business that is responsible for injuring you, will there be a car wreck or a slip fall or negligent security however you got hurt?

00:08:13:08 - 00:08:50:22 Unknown You understand that the person that hurt you is only going to be liable for the reasonable cost of necessary medical treatment, Reasonable and necessary. Well, if you get sent to one of these doctors or chiropractors that are charging these absurd rates, it's really hard for you to say that paying $500 or $100 for a Band-Aid is reasonable. The other side is going to pick up on that, and they're going to use that to defend the case.

00:08:50:23 - 00:09:25:04 Unknown I have seen cases where the defense settles for much less than what the medical bills are, which is ridiculous. But where they're able to do that because these medical costs are so high and at the end of the day, the person left holding the proverbial bag, if you will, is the client, because the lawyers got their third, their 40%, the doctor is going to get paid because you're contractually obligated to pay the doctor who gets pinched in the middle, the client.

00:09:26:20 - 00:10:02:16 Unknown So be very wary about trading on lanes. That's not to say that they're their bad lanes, have their place and they can be very beneficial to both a person, you know, being able to receive care and for the case itself. But they have to be used appropriately. If they get out of control, they can absolutely kill a case and they can leave a person in a position where they're so financially compromised that they cannot get the care they need without going into even more debt.

00:10:02:16 - 00:10:41:14 Unknown It's really a debt trap. So so beware of that. Another topic that you need to be cognizant of is if you miss work, if you miss employment, or if you miss out on money you would have otherwise made because of your injury. You need to be sure that that is documented properly. What does that mean? Well, if you get injured and you just don't go to work for three or four days after the injury or months and you don't have a doctor actually write you out to say, hey, this person cannot work right now.

00:10:41:14 - 00:11:02:16 Unknown You're running a risk of not being able to recover for those lost wages. If I see a person who has just not gone to work for a week, a month, a year, whatever it may be, and they sit down and they testify, Hey, I just couldn't do it. There's no way I could do it. I was physically incapable of doing it.

00:11:04:04 - 00:11:28:04 Unknown But all the while, they're going to see a doctor and they're not asking the doctor to write them out of work. And the doctor is not putting them on any sort of restrictions for work. Then that lends itself to suggest this person could work. They just didn't want to. All that person would have had to done. All the attorney had to do was make sure that their client knows.

00:11:28:14 - 00:11:51:11 Unknown They have to ask Dr. Joe. Hey, can I go to work based on your examination of me? And if Dr. Joe says no, then hey, Dr. Joe, please put that in my records or give me a work excuse those work excuses, or make all this back and forth about whether you could or whether you couldn't work. Go away.

00:11:51:11 - 00:12:24:00 Unknown So make sure that you get a work excuse. The next thing with with lost wages is make sure that your the money you missed out on is properly documented for an hourly employee. That's pretty easy. You know, Ms.. Smith works 40 hours a week. She gets paid X number of dollars. So that math is pretty easy. But what if you have someone who's more of an independent contractor that doesn't have a I, they don't know exactly what they're going to make.

00:12:24:03 - 00:12:46:20 Unknown For example, a waiter or a waitress, you know, they have their presumably they have a base amount that they're paid, but then a lot of their money comes through tips, Tips can go up and down. You know, you can't just rely on their hourly wage at that point. What you'll have to do is go back and get their records from their employer showing what wages they reported.

00:12:47:22 - 00:13:12:23 Unknown You know, what what what the actual paper trail says. You never want to get in a position where you say, hey, you know, I make X number of dollars a week, a month, whatever it may be. But but that's not what the paper says. The paper says, Why? Surely no one watching this would do something like that. But you're going to have to go with what the paper says and you're going to have to actually get that paper trail to show what you missed out on.

00:13:14:01 - 00:13:43:00 Unknown It gets even more complicated with a person who's self-employed. You know, it's dependent upon the amount of work they have available, things like that. There's there's all kinds of factors that go into how much a person who's self-employed actually makes for that. You know, we would have to get we start off with the tax returns, most likely our profit and loss statement work from there and possibly get some sort of expert involved if it's a substantial lost wages claim.

00:13:44:06 - 00:14:08:00 Unknown I have seen a lot of cases flounder on lost wages because the attorney simply says, Hey, you know, my client was out of work for three weeks. They're owed this much money, but they put nothing else on the table to actually prove that up. You know, last time we said insurance companies are businesses, you know, they're in the business of settling claims.

00:14:08:00 - 00:14:28:06 Unknown They're in the business of resolving claims. But what they're not in the business of doing is just handing out money. If they just hand out money, then they're going to be out of business. So the plaintiff's attorney has to take it upon themselves to put together the documentation necessary to show the insurance company, Hey, this was a real loss and this is how much it was.

00:14:29:15 - 00:14:51:15 Unknown If you do that. More often than not, insurance companies are happy to pay claims because that means they don't have as many of them hanging around. So it's all about putting together the proper information. Next thing I want to talk about is another reason that so many cases go into lawsuit. That's just a clarification of a point that came up from last time.

00:14:52:08 - 00:15:14:17 Unknown You know, last time we did a little video that said 99.9% of the time, cases don't go to trial unless there is a free swing. Okay. First of all, that 99.9% may have been a bit of an exaggeration is more like 95% just to just characterize. But you get it. The vast majority of cases are not going to trial.

00:15:16:11 - 00:15:41:21 Unknown That being said, a ton of cases go into litigation. So what's the difference? So from the time of the incident until a lawsuit is filed, is considered pre suit like before a lawsuits filed, that's what it's classified as. Once the lawsuits filed, it's in litigation. It may be in litigation for years. And then at the end of the litigation, it culminates in a trial.

00:15:42:05 - 00:16:10:08 Unknown Okay. So the trial is pretty much the last stop on this train. You're on. But a ton of cases go into litigation as opposed to settling without litigation. So why is that? First of all, you get look at fee contracts. I think this drives a lot of people. You know, when you sign up with an attorney or when you engage an attorney in a personal injury case, fees vary.

00:16:11:05 - 00:16:39:10 Unknown The industry standard is that if a case get settled pre suit like before lawsuits filed, it cost a third. And then if you have to actually file a lawsuit, he goes to 40%. That's roughly a 7% increase. That's one financial motivation. Let's just be honest. We're all human here. There are times I see cases and I scratch in my head like, why on earth would this person file this lawsuit?

00:16:39:12 - 00:17:00:05 Unknown Why would they do it? And the only thing that I can come up with at that point in time is, well, you know, somebody getting that extra 7%, I hate to say it like that, but those things happen. You know, we're we're human. We all have our motivations. But cases more often than not don't need to go into litigation.

00:17:00:05 - 00:17:44:01 Unknown There are cases that need litigation in cases that don't that have nothing to do with the value of those cases. If you put together a properly supported demand and send it to the insurance company and a keyword there, the key phrase is properly supported. That's realistic. More often than not, you're going to settle the case. It's better for everybody sometimes, not always, but it's better for everybody because the client doesn't have to wait years to get the money they need, to get the medical care they need.

00:17:44:01 - 00:18:09:16 Unknown The insurance company doesn't have to hold the case on its books for years. It's better for everybody to resolve things quickly if if possible, if it's appropriate. And sometimes it's not appropriate. But you want to make sure that you send a supported demand. So what is a supported demand? Yeah, and it's very basic. What you're going to see is a copy of some sort of incident report.

00:18:09:16 - 00:18:30:00 Unknown It could be a police report saying that, you know, this crime happened here and this person was hurt. It could be a traffic crash report the police give you says, I, there's a motor vehicle accident. This is what it was. It could be a report written by a business where something happened, where they document, hey, these are the events that unfolded.

00:18:30:00 - 00:18:54:06 Unknown But there needs to be some sort of report. There also needs to be photographs and videos, if at all possible. These are things that need to be documented from the get go. So why not have them early on and include them in a demand? You know, photographs of the scene where the crime happened, photographs of the vehicles involved, photographs of the injuries.

00:18:55:16 - 00:19:19:00 Unknown You know, if appropriate, maybe a video showing the limitations that a person has things to document this stuff and make it actually tangible. The next thing a supported demand will need to have, of course, are your medical bills and records to date. Those are pretty standard in our demands. We take it off and take it a step further.

00:19:19:00 - 00:19:43:10 Unknown What we'll do is we'll we'll go talk to the doctors and say, Hey, doc, you know, Ms.. Smith, over here, we represent her. These are the records that you've that you've produced. This is the treatment that you've given her. Would you mind giving us a medical narrative? The medical narrative is simply a tool by which we can get that doctor's testimony into evidence cheaply.

00:19:44:11 - 00:20:09:05 Unknown Doctors, you know, they're they're businessmen. They're not going to take two or 3 hours out of their day and come sit down with me in my office and let me videotape them for free. Doctors are going to charge thousands of dollars to come do that. But with a medical narrative, we can write it, give it to the doctor, give the doctor an opportunity to make any changes the doctor wants to make.

00:20:10:03 - 00:20:34:15 Unknown Have them sign it. And there we go. We've got, you know, page two, three pages worth of their testimony. That's admissible way that would be admissible in court and evidence because of some evidentiary rules. But we're not waiting until the day of trial or six months before trial to do that. You know, we're doing it upfront to show the insurance company that we are actually prepared to go that route if necessary.

00:20:34:15 - 00:21:03:13 Unknown So we'll put together medical narratives if a case warrants it. You know, we might have an accident reconstructionist go out or some other sort of expert to do an analysis of how this all happened. You know, I tell you, it's funny. I tell people all the time you've got what you remember and everybody's kind of to varying degrees, they can recollect what happened a week ago, but you pull them back two years after the fact.

00:21:03:13 - 00:21:23:14 Unknown Their recollection is not going to be that good. They're going to remember what they want to what was important to them. But the details are going to lose. You know, when we send these experts out, they'll take into consideration the testimony. I mean, they have to consider everything, but they're really basing their analysis on measurements and time. And it's science people.

00:21:25:10 - 00:21:52:20 Unknown It's you know, there's science behind it that you just can't deny. So we're not worried about credibility at that point if it's actually set up in a science. In addition to that, if the person needs follow on medical care, if, you know, Ms.. Smith has a condition that's going to require treatment, surgery may be in the future, we'll go ahead and get a get an estimate done.

00:21:53:09 - 00:22:23:02 Unknown You know, we'll engage the services of a hospitalist and say, hey, you know, this is the treatment that Ms.. Smith is going to need over the next 2030 years, whatever it may be. This is what we projected the cost to be will include those things in our demand, sending a well-supported demand that you've got everything done that you could possibly do at that point in time tells the insurance company that this is being taken seriously.

00:22:23:06 - 00:22:44:12 Unknown You know, we take it seriously and it gives them a basis to decide what the what their value is. You've got to give them information in order to get a number back. You can't just call or just send a letter and say, Hey, Ms.. Smith was in an accident yesterday. She went the emergency room. Your policy limits are $100,000.

00:22:44:12 - 00:23:12:22 Unknown We want them by tomorrow. The insurance company can't do anything with that. You know, you have to give them information to allow them to to make a reasoned decision. Again, you know, insurance companies are are not I mean, I'm not going to get down on that much because they're in the they're in the business of settling clients, but they're in the business of paying reasonable amounts for claims.

00:23:14:05 - 00:23:39:17 Unknown If you give them the information they need to make a decision, they'll do it. Just make sure that your attorneys send in a supported demand. Next topic unrealistic. But we can just do one too unrealistic and put all kinds of things at the end of that. You know, unrealistic expectations, unrealistic timeframes. Those are two two things ripe for discussion.

00:23:39:17 - 00:24:11:04 Unknown So let's talk about those unrealistic time frames. If I handed you a 3000 pages of medical records and documents and photographs and so on and so forth, and I said, I want you to make a couple hundred thousand dollar decision about this by tomorrow. You look at me like I was crazy. You can't process 3000 plus pages in that time frame.

00:24:11:19 - 00:24:42:06 Unknown You can't do it. The law, typically in the context of motor vehicle accidents, at least, you know, prior to a suit being filed gives an insurance company at least 30 days, at least 30 days to to respond to a demand. I'm of the opinion that if you send a voluminous demand with thousands of pages and an insurance company asks you for additional time, you should give it to them.

00:24:43:08 - 00:25:02:07 Unknown When a when an opposing party or an insurer asked you for an additional time, what they're telling you is, hey, we're actually looking at this stuff. Give us time to actually look through it. So many people just bang their hand on the table and say, hey, 30 days is 30 days. That's all you're going to get is your 30 days.

00:25:03:02 - 00:25:29:10 Unknown Well, your time, their hands at that point, what if they simply cannot get through the information in 30 days? At that point, they have no alternative but to reject your demand. You know, be reasonable with your timeframes. If you send 100 pages, then 30 days should suffice. But when you're talking thousands of pages, give them additional time, unrealistic expectations.

00:25:30:09 - 00:25:55:06 Unknown And I think this is a pet peeve of mine, and I don't want to rehash everything we talked about last time, but I'm of the opinion that people's expectations are driven by what they see and what they hear about other cases. Well, you've got these I'm a I'm I call them big TV firms is what I'm going to call them.

00:25:55:15 - 00:26:20:15 Unknown You know, you know, the ones the biggest firms on and on the Earth are the biggest firms. And, you know, Atlanta, so on, so forth. They're putting out, advertise and say, hey, we got Miss Smith $1,000,000. We got Ms.. Smith, $500,000, we got Ms.. Smith, $100 million, whatever it may be. But at the end of those, they tell you, well, every case is different.

00:26:20:15 - 00:26:47:00 Unknown We can't guarantee you $1,000,000. Well, if that's the case, why are you telling me about it? If every case is different, what benefit is it to you to tell me that you got this 100 million or $1,000,000 settlement if you're just going to in the same breath, tell me, well, I can't do this for you necessarily. We all know what the reason is, is to set that expert expectation is to set the expectation that, hey, this is what I can get.

00:26:47:00 - 00:27:13:14 Unknown But what they don't tell you is these large firms are processing thousands and thousands of cases. I cannot emphasize that enough, thousands and thousands of cases. And they are picking out one, maybe two a year that they're going to actually tell you about. They're not going to tell you about the other, you know, 9999 cases that were just ordinary or mediocre.

00:27:14:08 - 00:27:39:04 Unknown They're going to tell you about the one. I'll be straight honest with you. You give me the right set of facts. I'll let my 14 year old son settle that case. He's got no law degree, no experience. He'll get them $1,000,000 to the right set of facts. It doesn't impress me. Realistic expectations. What does that mean? Well, it gets to value in your case, based upon the merits of your actual case.

00:27:40:00 - 00:28:03:06 Unknown And that takes somebody to sit down with you and explain to you how these cases are evaluated. So I'm going to give you just a quick rundown of how to evaluate a case. Now, this is just how I do it. There's no way to say a case is worth X number of dollars with 100% certainty. Nobody can do that.

00:28:04:11 - 00:28:26:06 Unknown You know, insurance companies and attorneys, they have, you know, computers with artificial intelligence that try to do that, but they can't do it. And there's a number of reasons they can't do it. But what are we looking for? You start off with the medical bills because those are tangible. We can say, hey, Miss Smith has X number of dollars worth of medical bills.

00:28:26:12 - 00:28:49:00 Unknown This is what she has. Assuming those are reasonable bills and reliable, we can use those bills as a starting point. The next thing we're going to look at is the length of time that Miss Smith treated Ms.. Smith and her treatment on January 1st, and she traded until Christmas. You know, the next year she traded approximately 12 months.

00:28:49:00 - 00:29:09:22 Unknown That's something that we can we can say for certain. The time frame they're going to look at the injury, was this an injury that was debilitating or was it an injury that just was aggravating? What I mean by that is is Ms.. Smith able to go about her day but she just has neck or back pain or does her leg hurt or is this a situation where Ms..

00:29:09:22 - 00:29:32:08 Unknown Smith just couldn't do anything for extended period of time? We take that and we assign that a value, and the value we assign it is dependent upon a lot of factors that I'll talk about. But anyways, we assign that value and you can multiply it out over that course of time to get an understanding of what her pain and suffering might be worth.

00:29:32:22 - 00:29:56:19 Unknown And these are there's going to be ranges high, low and mid-range will multiply it out. And then you ask, okay, when she stopped treating, is she still going to have issues? Does she need further treatment? And if she's still going to have issues, we use that same multiplier out into the future. If you still going to have medical expenses, we determine what those are going to be and add those in.

00:29:57:05 - 00:30:20:19 Unknown If she has lost wages, we add those in as well. What the multiplier is, is really dependent upon a number of things and we can come up with new things all day long. But I'm going to give you just the basic ones. The biggest one is the venue. You know, every county is not the same. That's how Georgia sets it up.

00:30:20:19 - 00:30:48:19 Unknown You know, you have to sue in the county of the defendant's residence. So like for me, I work in Sumter and Dougherty County, but I live in Crisp County. So if someone wants to sue me personally, they have to do it in Crisp County, assuming they stay in state court. If I get an accident in Atlanta and hurt somebody, they've still got to come to Chris County to sue me.

00:30:49:20 - 00:31:21:15 Unknown So what county the defendant resides in is in critical importance because counties are made up differently of the people in those counties, you know, painting with a very broad brush here, because I understand everybody's not the same, but we classify these counties as conservative, liberal, moderate. And that's, you know, real, real quick rundown of it. In a conservative venue, your multiplier is going to be less because the idea is the people there have more conservative views when it comes to money.

00:31:22:00 - 00:31:43:17 Unknown Therefore, they want to award as much moderate. You know what that is? And liberal county, you know, the school of thought is they have a more liberal view of money. Therefore they're going to award more. So that's how venue can play into it. And then, you know, the multiplier, of course, you got to talk about the actual injury itself.

00:31:43:17 - 00:32:13:16 Unknown If it's like, again, if it's debilitating or just aggravating, those are two quick breakdowns of it. Yeah. If it's if it's just aggravating, it's going to be less than if it's debilitating. But you have to go through this process and look at all these things to get an idea, a realistic idea of what a case is worth. Now, equally important to determining what a case is worth is determining what is what recoverable money is there out there.

00:32:14:10 - 00:32:41:08 Unknown So if the person who injured you is indigent, meaning that they could not pay a judgment, if you were awarded a judgment, then you're going to be stuck with whatever insurance money there is. And there are tools to help us find what insurance money is out there. You know, first, the person who injured you, their insurance, and then your own insurance.

00:32:42:11 - 00:33:14:12 Unknown But there are multiple layers. I see very often that attorneys skip over additional layers of insurance that could have been beneficial to their client. In an ideal situation, what happens is the reasonable value of the case matches up perfectly with the amount of insurance that's available. That's a perfect world, which means it rarely happens. More often than not, you're stuck in one of two scenarios.

00:33:15:01 - 00:33:42:04 Unknown Either you have a catastrophic case where somebody died, but there's only minimal coverage still never even come. Or not, that money could compensate for it, but they'll never come close to compensating for it. Or you'll have a an injury with a lesser value, with it exceeding the amount of coverage. It's kind of talk about those scenarios real quick.

00:33:42:22 - 00:34:09:01 Unknown So in the scenario where you have a catastrophic loss and minimal coverage, this is where I talk about people putting their hands in folks pockets. If you come to me with a wrongful death case, just let's do something classic here. It's a pedestrian strike. Okay. You know, James Smith was walking down the road and and Jill Jones hit him, plowed him, killed him.

00:34:09:14 - 00:34:38:15 Unknown And Jill Jones. The fall of Jill Jones has got $25,000 worth of liability coverage. That's it. Well, the person who's hit their family goes to an attorney and says, Attorney, what should we do? Attorney says, well, sign this piece of paper, Attorney gets the case. He gets a death certificate and an accident report. That's all that's all that person has to get Sends a letter to the insurance company.

00:34:38:15 - 00:35:03:03 Unknown The insurance company sends back a check for $25,000. The fast fireballs are coming off the sides of it. The lawyer did nothing in that scenario, nothing to earn their fee whatsoever. If that lawyer was truly helping their client, he would have told the family, Hey, all you've got to do is get death certificate and call this person and tell him you want your your money.

00:35:04:09 - 00:35:42:23 Unknown That's all you had to do is tell that person that is is it ethical to take a third for doing what that attorney did? That's really not up to me. That's up to the bar. I just know that if I were that family after the fact, I would be upset about it. So beware of that. On the flip side, you know, you have too much coverage for the injury and that scenario, the defense has all the leverage because they know on their worst day you're not going to eclipse their coverage.

00:35:43:19 - 00:36:08:05 Unknown So how do you get around that? How do you do things to prompt a settlement at that point? Well, it really goes back to what we talked about earlier. You make sure you send a well-supported, thoughtful and properly evaluated demand. You say you have to you can't just say I want all of it, because if you say you want all of it, you're going to be fighting forever because you're not entitled to all of it.

00:36:08:05 - 00:36:33:02 Unknown More than likely, you have to have a really well thought out demand that says, Hey, we will accept this and leave the rest of that coverage on the table because you're going to end up fighting for years over that and you're probably not going to get it. So a well-thought out demand to make one thing real clear, we are always willing to go to trial.

00:36:34:19 - 00:36:53:11 Unknown If the client wants to go to trial, we're willing to go to trial, and we're going to do everything we can in our power to make sure the trial works out in the client's favor. So don't take all this as meaning, hey, they don't they don't go to trial. They're not going to fight for me. That's not the case.

00:36:53:11 - 00:37:14:12 Unknown But what I don't want to see a client do is spend a dollar chasing a dime. I don't want to see them do that. I want to be and I want to be able to tell them, Hey, read the tea leaves looking down the road. This is where you're headed. I want them to have good information. So that they can make the best decision for themselves.

00:37:15:02 - 00:37:39:18 Unknown I don't want to just put blinders on them and say, Hey, we're going to trial no matter what I want. I want I want them to have every opportunity to resolve their case under terms they're happy with. I have a lady right now, super sweet lady, super sweet lady. I don't know if anybody is from Plains, but I've not met one main person from Plains yet.

00:37:40:13 - 00:38:00:17 Unknown Someone may prove me wrong, but this is the sweetest lady I think I've ever met or had the pleasure of of of representing. She does not care if I told her she was going to get $1,000 back, she would be just as happy as if I told her she was going to get a couple hundred thousand dollars back.

00:38:00:17 - 00:38:31:13 Unknown She does not care. I am having to hold her. Kind of had a stiff arm in a polite way, letting her know, hey, you should not accept that. You should not accept that. You know, we know what your case is worth. We're going to get there. And she tells you, she said, I'm happy with whatever. I don't want clients just to be happy with whatever, you know, I want clients to be happy with what they actually get In an event.

00:38:31:13 - 00:38:55:08 Unknown A client tells me, Hey, I'm not happy with this, or then we're going to go back to work and we're going to figure out a way to get a more, you know, this is all just information. This is information about things we can do short of a trial. This is information about things that people need to consider when they are potentially facing a trial a year or two later.

00:38:56:16 - 00:39:17:05 Unknown But under no circumstances should this be a suggestion that we're going to shy away from trial at any point time, because that's certainly not the case. All right, guys, hope you got some value out of that. If you're listening to podcasts, we really appreciate it. If you lose review, if you're listening video platform, if you would like to share, we'd really appreciate it.

00:39:17:05 - 00:39:28:01 Unknown Maybe share with a friend that could use this information. Thank you.