Personal Injury Law

When to Get Your Experts Lined Up?

It is amazing how many plaintiffs' accident lawyers file suit, name experts, and then give a key expert like a treating doctor a call to find out the expert's opinion on the case. It is equally amazing how often insurance company lawyers wait until after the discovery deadline passes before having a substantive conversation with their experts about the case.

Some attorneys just don't want to spend the time to be proactive because, hey, the case might settle. Why spend the time on the front end lining up the treating doctor? In some cases, the economics of the case demand this approach. I would not line up experts in a garden variety soft tissue injury case before trial. Because your proactivity (a word I just made up) might not be in the client's long term interest.

But assuming you have a very serious injury car or truck accident case and you need an expert, get the experts on board early. How do you know you need one? Do you have a problem with speed, with drinking, with highway design, with a ?dangerous condition?? Well, you won?t know if you have any of those things if you don?t investigate your claims properly.

But when you discover these issues, here is why you need that expert early. If the issue is speed, you need your accident reconstructionist involved early even if you never intend to call an accident reconstructionist at trial - it is the evidence that is key. Skid marks fade or wash away, and vehicle damage is repaired. Photos are not always enough, if the depth of a dent, the gear a car locked into at impact, or the length of a skid is at issue. Dents get fixed, cars are sold for salvage, and you can?t measure a photograph. The design of the road could be changed, or lights and lane markings can be moved. Once the truck with the improperly secured load is taken away without being photographed, you can?t get that evidence back. After this happens, you can?t undo the damage to your case. But once you lock the important facts in with an early expert investigation, there isn?t anything the other side can do to make that evidence go away.

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on October 20, 2010 (boomark / email).