How Does A Personal Injury Attorney Investigate A Case?
One of the biggest reasons to retain personal injury representation is to have help putting together a claim or suit. This often requires a personal injury attorney to investigate the circumstances surrounding an accident. The following explores how a lawyer usually conducts investigations before filing injury claims.
Determining if an Investigation Is Necessary
Not all cases call for investigating anything. Sometimes the parties agree on what happened. As a matter of due diligence, though, a personal injury attorney will want to at least confirm that a case is as open and shut as it seems.
Communication
A lot of working through an injury claim boils down to communication. For example, a lawyer might contact the EMTs who responded to the initial call after an incident. They'll ask basic questions about what occurred. The same goes for speaking with witnesses, doctors, police officers, firefighters, and other individuals who might have been present.
Gathering Reports
Injury cases are often filled with two kinds of reports. Unsurprisingly, medical reports feature prominently in most cases. Working from their experience, a personal injury attorney will try to connect what the medical reports say to the evidence that a defendant was at fault in a case.
The second type of report are reports from the scene of an incident. When first responders go out on calls, they almost always write reports explaining what they saw. These sorts of contemporaneous reports from people in positions of authority are hard for defendants to refute, and they can serve as powerful evidence that a defendant was at fault.
Expert Witnesses
Some incidents are complex enough that a lawyer may need to ask an expert for guidance. If someone was injured by an explosion while passing by a construction site, for example, a personal injury attorney would likely consult with people who have backgrounds in explosives, construction accidents, and safety regulations. The testimony of these witnesses can add to the credibility of a claim. Also, it is sometimes necessary to refute assertions by the defense.
Visiting the Site of the Incident
There is rarely any substitute for looking at things in real life. If at all possible, a personal injury attorney may want to visit a site to take photographs and try to compare witness testimony to what they see. A lawyer may even visit a site with an expert witness so they can both get a better sense of what happened.
