No one wakes up one morning with the expectation of being injured due to the negligence of another person or entity. Even as you deal with recovering, it pays to hire an Oshawa personal injury lawyer from Law123 who can protect your interests. His task is to provide you with answers related to the whole process and to give you professional advice for your case.
You can expect your legal counsel to provide some sound advice only if you have managed to hire an attorney who has a lot of experience in this field of work and knows what needs to be done. Follow that advice to the letter if you want to have the best chance of receiving a reasonable amount of compensation. His task is to take care of your best interest, and hopefully, the final result is going to be in your best interest. Here are some examples of what your lawyer is likely to advise.
Don’t Be Scared of Court Hearing and Jury
A personal injury claim is a civil claim, as a clinical negligence claim. This is not the case where you are going to be placed before the judge and the jury. You shouldn’t be scared of this. Roughly, only around 1% of this kind of claims end up going to trial. Those claims finish on trial usually involve massive compensation claims or when an insurer claims that the claimant wasn’t completely honest when it comes to the case and the situation where he or she got injured.
Tell Your Legal Counsel Everything
One of the most common mistakes that clients make is attempting to filter the information given to the legal counsel. At times, the motivation may be thinking that some detail is not important. Your legal counsel is in a better position to determine if that information is relevant to the case. Something that you see as of no value could mean quite a bit to your case. Let the lawyer decide.
If you feel a little embarrassed about some aspect of the situation, don’t hide it from your lawyer. That same information may end up being used by the legal counsel for the opposing party. It’s better to tell all to your legal counsel and let the lawyer decide if that information will need to be included or not.
But Say Little to Nothing to Anyone Else
While being forthcoming with your lawyer is a good thing; keeping your mouth shut around others is also a smart move. Your lawyer will likely urge you not to share any details about the event or your plans to seek damages. You never know who may be listening or how your comments may be interpreted. A comment that you considered perfectly innocent could become an obstacle during settlement negotiations or the court deliberations. Saying nothing now will minimize the potential for this to happen.
Seek a Proper Medical Treatment
One of the most important advice from your injury lawyer will be to look for appropriate medical treatment. This is important because the doctor’s report can have a significant influence on backing up your claims related to the injury. This is a crucial element that can be used to prove that you are injured and that you are inclined to some compensation, which depends on the place and circumstances you have suffered your injury at.
Curb Your Activities, So They are in Line with Your Doctor’s Recommendations
Your lawyer does support whatever recommendations your doctor makes. If you’ve been told to refrain from certain activities, then do so. Even if you’re feeling better one day and want to be out and about, resist the urge.
Along with overdoing things and impeding your recovery, the fact that someone sees you out doing something that’s supposed to be off-limits will not help your case. It could be enough to derail it. By choosing to curtail your activities until the doctor provides permission, you make life easier for you, your doctor, and your legal counsel.
Compensation Claim is Not an Easy Task
As an experienced injury lawyer will inform you, claiming a compensation related to your injury is not going to be an easy task. Naturally, there are cases like road traffic accidents. They are pretty straight-forward, and you can expect a resolution to the situation shortly. However, a great majority of cases have their own complexity, and you are not going to be entitled to compensation so quickly. This is especially true if an injury happened at work. This is essential advice from the council because a client will not rush with his presumptions and ultimately lose the case. It is crucial to have a conversation about the potential setbacks and advantages with your legal counselor.
Obtaining Evidence
After you have suffered an accident and you are injured, you need to make sure to gather some evidence that is going to help your future claim. It may sound funny, but you need to look at the scene of the accident as a murder scene. You can be an investigator in your case and scene. You can use your mobile phone to take some pictures or videos that are going to serve as evidence in the case. At the same, you should look for some witnesses that are going to support your story. It is crucial to do this because you can prove that someone’s misbehavior or negligence caused your accident. In a case when this is exactly what happened, and you didn’t manage to obtain the crucial evidence, it is going to be much harder for you to win the case.
Not Communicating with the Other Party
Don’t be surprised if the other party or the legal counsel for the other party tries to communicate with you. If that happens, refer all attempts to your lawyer. You are under no obligation to speak with anyone other than your legal counsel. Since the most likely reason for those attempts to communicate have to do with tricking you into saying something that can be used to defeat the personal injury claim, you don’t want to talk with them anyway. Let your legal counsel do the talking.
You hired a personal injury lawyer to protect your interests. Work closely with your lawyer and take his or her advice to heart. In the long run, you’ll be glad that you did.