Different considerations for selecting a lawyer for a serious injury or wrongful death case
In this article I will discuss different considerations for selecting a lawyer for a serious injury or wrongful death case like an Iowa Wrongful Death Lawyer for example:
My office is in the Minneapolis/St. Paul Minnesota area, but I am a licensed trial lawyer in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Why should a family hire me as opposed to a lawyer closer to them?
The first question is where will the attorney meet you? I will come to you—wherever you are. I do not expect you to come to my office—I come to you. Most lawyers want you to come to their office.
The second question is how will we communicate as compared to a lawyer whose office is 20 miles away? I return telephone calls within 30 minutes unless I am in court or helping another client. When you call, I will discuss your case with you—I do not transfer your case to a different attorney or a law clerk or a paralegal. I take pride in customer service; thus, I will communicate with you more than an attorney who is closer to you.
The third question is should I hire you or a large, local law firm? Unfortunately, often in large personal injury law firms, once a client hires the firm, the experienced lawyers do not handle the case until the late stages of a case. Rather, the law firm has lawyers without experience and paralegals handle the case so that the senior partners can work on bigger cases. In my office, I handle your case from the beginning to the end. I take pride in personal service, and I limit the number of cases that I take so that I can know my clients and work as hard as I can on their case.
Lastly, does a local lawyer have the experience to aggressively represent you in your case? I have been a trial lawyer for more than 23 years, and I have tried 43 cases to juries all over the US. I have the experience to go “toe to toe” with the experienced lawyers that the insurance companies will hire.
Some of the important parts of a serious injury or wrongful death trial
In this article I will describe some of the important parts of a serious injury trial or a wrongful death trial:
- Evidence: can be a person’s statements—testimony—or documents such as medical records, employment records, written statements, photographs, etc. Some people on the jury learn by hearing things, some people on the jury learn by seeing things, some people on the jury learn best by touching things; and most people on the jury learn best by a combination of these learning styles. In my experience, it is most effective to show juries pictures, diagrams, and documents as well as to have them hear testimony so that the information is presented in as many forms as possible.
- Testimony: can be the most interesting part of a trial as people will testify differently in court as they testified in their depositions. Juries have been trained by television, movies, plays, and other forms of entertainment to pay attention to stories and to people telling them stories; thus, when presenting testimony, it is most effective to tell stories to illustrate testimony.
- Witness credibility: often a trial will be won or lost based upon the credibility or, in other words, the believability of a witness. The witness who the jury believes and likes will have more power than the witness who the jury does not believe.
- Jury deliberations: I have tried more than 43 cases to juries all over the US. In the cases in which my clients have received favorable verdicts, and in the cases in which my clients have not received favorable verdicts, I am sure that the jury did their best in resolving the dispute. Juries take their duty seriously. They pay attention to the evidence, and they make their decisions based upon what they think is the fairest and most appropriate outcome. It is unquestionably the best system devised to resolve disputes.