Today, I want to talk about the importance of an injury lawyer’s team of personal injury experts. If you are injured, you may need scientific, medical, and other personal injury experts on your side. They can help prove damages from your personal injury. A personal injury lawyer can retain these experts on your behalf.
Let’s start with the basics.
How can I know if I need scientific, medical, and other personal injury experts to prove my case?
You are an injury victim. You think—or you are certain—you have a claim for compensation for the personal injury you have suffered. You want to obtain the best possible compensation for your personal injury.
You can’t rely on an insurance company for advice. The at-fault party’s insurance company wants to minimize its costs and won’t retain these experts for you. On the other hand, your injury lawyers’ interests are aligned with your interests – to maximize your claim and ensure you receive fair compensation. How will you know if you need personal injury experts to prove your case? You will probably turn to your lawyer for advice.
Now, you face a new question. To recommend whether to involve medical and other experts on your behalf, do you want an injury lawyer or a lawyer who sometimes practises injury law? To most injury victims, the answer is obvious. You will trust the advice of an injury lawyer.
- An injury lawyer will have the knowledge and experience from hundreds or thousands of cases to know whether you need the services of personal injury experts to help prove your case.
- An injury lawyer will have a team of experts available.
- An injury lawyer will have used these experts in the past, establishing their reliability, expertise, and ability to testify, if required, in court.
- An injury lawyer will know how to take best advantage of these experts, how to inform them, and what questions to ask them.
- An injury lawyer will know how to examine their findings and employ their evidence to get the compensation you deserve.
Even a very good lawyer, who sometimes practises injury law, can’t bring those kinds of benefits to your case.
What kind of experts can an injury lawyer involve if my case?
An injury lawyer will have a team of personal injury experts available as required. That team will probably include one or more of following personal injury experts:
- accident investigator
- accident reconstruction engineer
- economist
- neurologist
- neuropsychologist
- occupational therapist
- orthopedic specialist
- otolaryngologist
- physiatrist
- psychiatrist
- psychologist
- TMJ specialist
- vocational psychologist
- other personal injury experts as needed.
You can learn about the roles these experts play in a personal injury case by visiting My Team of Experts on my website.
What qualifications should personal injury experts have?
You want your lawyer’s team of personal injury experts to be qualified, knowledgeable, experienced, and respected by the Court to help maximize your settlement or judgement at trial.
You will probably rely on your injury lawyer for advice on the qualifications of any required personal injury experts. I only use personal injury experts who have been qualified by the Alberta Court of King’s Bench to testify in their respective capacities.
Who pays the fees of personal injury experts?
The costs of retaining the experts can range from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. These costs are called disbursements. Be sure you ask your injury lawyer who pays for these disbursements. In my injury law practice, I will:
- pay all the costs of expert reports
- recover the costs of these reports from the at fault party’s insurer (with very few exceptions) only after you have received your settlement or judgement at trial.
Personal injury experts can help maximize the compensation you receive for your personal injury
Here are 3 simple guidelines when you talk with your injury lawyer about personal injury experts:
- Ask your personal injury lawyer if your case requires personal injury experts.
- Ask your personal injury lawyer who pays for their fees and when those payments are due.
- Ask about the qualifications of your injury lawyer’s team of personal injury experts.
My next blog in this series will be “5 reasons why injury victims should hire a personal injury lawyer instead of a lawyer”.
