Filing a law suit is the step you should take, if you have slip and fell or an accident caused by another person. The lawsuit can help you in getting money to pay your medical bills, lost wages and many more. A research has shown that close to 95% of personal injury cases are settled before they get to the court room. Here is a guide you can follow, if your personal injury case goes to trial.
Ensure you have a personal injury lawyer based in your area. The market is flooded with personal injury lawyers, getting one should not be challenging. When choosing a lawyer, checking the duration of time they have been representing clients with personal injury cases is important. Also, the lawyer should have a history of getting large cash settlement for their clients.
The lawyer you have hired will help you in investigating your case. The lawyer should be able to investigate your case using the resources they have. At this stage, the lawyer should know if your case is strong or not. Some of the information the lawyer should have are medical reports, police reports and witness statement. To increase chances of winning your case, the lawyer should consider the defense the opposing party will use.
If you have a strong case, the lawyer should create a demand letter. The framework of your case and the compensation amount should not miss on the demand letter. The injuries sustained and the medical bills you have used should be incurred in the demand letter. The opposing side may decide to settle depending on how strong your case is.
Your lawyer will need to file a personal law suit, if the other party doesn’t want to settle.
Before your case goes to trial it has to pass through the discovery and mediation phase. To know how strong the case is, both parties gather evidence from both sides in the discovery phase. In the mediation phase a mediator will try to have both parties agree on a settlement instead of going to court. Ensure you have a mediator that is highly skilled.
If the mediation phase is not successful, there is not other choice but for your case to go for trial. In the court room, both parties will be given a chance to represent their case in front a jury.
The jury will take everything that both you and the opposing party and then decide who caused the accident. They will decide which party should be compensated and how much.
If you lose the case, if you want to appeal, you can go ahead and do that.
