Of the many personal injury cases that lawyers can pursue on behalf of their clients, one of the more complicated and sophisticated cases to handle involves victims who suffer from traumatic brain injury.
These cases are so difficult that many personal injury lawyers decline to take them on because they do not have the experience required. They also realize that these cases require a level of medical expertise that they do not possess.
This is why it is so important to hire a personal injury lawyer with a proven track record in cases involving traumatic brain injury, also known as TBI. In some instances, personal injury lawyers take these cases on without realizing their difficulty, and then end up settling them for far less than they should. As a result, victims and their relatives do not receive the damages they deserve and need to provide adequate care over many years.
How are TBI cases different from other personal injury cases?
A person with a TBI can experience many complications, including surviving in a coma, a vegetative state, a minimally conscious state, or with no measurable activity in the brain. In milder traumatic brain injury cases, the victim is susceptible long-term to seizures, fluid buildup in the brain, infections, blood vessel damage, headaches, and vertigo.
Traumatic brain injury cases also can be expensive to pursue because insurance companies are less likely to settle, knowing the level of medical sophistication required for a lawyer to successfully pursue the case.
When considering a personal injury lawyer to handle your traumatic brain injury case or that of your surviving relative, it is important to understand that these cases require lawyers with extensive and provable track records of handling brain injury litigation. They can only acquire this experience through extensive training and education, comprehensive study of such cases, familiarity with expert litigators, serving as a second chair to a more experienced litigator and ultimately leading the litigation and trial work with an expert serving as the second chair.
That type of experience helps mitigate efforts by insurance companies not to take claims and lawsuits seriously in such cases. Without a credible threat of going to trial, which includes a track record of winning such trials, insurance companies will attempt to undervalue any settlement offer made to end the case.
Considering asking personal injury lawyers a series of questions to identify which one is right for your case, including:
- How long has the lawyer worked with TBI survivors?
- Has the lawyer been successful in recovering settlements and verdicts in such cases?
- If so, how much were the settlements and verdicts?
- Did the settlements and verdicts provide enough to cover the compensation and medical care required?
- Does the lawyer have prior clients they will offer as references?
- Does the lawyer have any special certifications in TBI cases?
- What seminars and education programs have the lawyer attended or taught about such cases?
- Does the lawyer serve as a contact for other personal injury lawyers who handle these cases?
- What defense strategy is typical in these cases and what is the lawyer’s response?
- How does a lawyer handle arguments that a TBI does not exist if the victim’s CT scans and MRIs are “normal?”
- What are the types of damages the lawyer pursues in TBI cases?
