The subject of this video is what questions should I ask to my lawyer during my initial personal injury meeting. Now, again, this, this video assumes that you’re meeting with a lawyer and not a paralegal or an investigator because of that’s who you’re meeting with in your initial consultation. You really need to rethink what you’re doing. So again, some of the questions that come up to me and topics of conversation that I think are important to clients, uh, during our initial meeting, basically, uh, who are, who exactly is the client going to be dealing with on a daily or a weekly basis? I think it’s important for the client to meet those people. So again, what I’d like to do is introduce one of the, my two assistants to each one of the clients and say, basically this person will be your main source of contact for regular communication.
Uh, which sort of leads me into the, uh, the next factor is, um, you know, when should you be communicating with your lawyer. And I like, I like getting these types of questions from clients because, uh, although I don’t need to know as the lawyer, every time you’re going into physical therapy or every time you’re seeing a chiropractor, I do need to know about important events in your case and important events mean, uh, if you’re sent out to another doctor, uh, for example, you may need an MRI. I need to know when that is and uh, if you’ve gone out for a surgical consultation, if you’re considering injections or some other type of procedure, I personally need to be made aware about those types of decisions. But again, for lines of communication, I’d like to introduce the, the client to my assistants who will be handling the day in and day out communications.
Another topic that I like my clients to ask me is my relationship with the doctor. So if I’ve referred a person out, you can pretty much assume that I know the doctor and I have a relationship with that doctor. But if a client comes to me and has already treating with a doctor or wants to go to a specific doctor, I’d like to have a conversation about what my relationship is with that doctor and that that really benefits the client two ways. If I know the doctor, I sort of know their style and their techniques and their qualifications. Also, it helps on the back end if we need a reduction on their bill. So for example, say the insurance company doesn’t offer as much as as what we would like, but I need to get a bill reduced and have a relationship with that doctor. It’s really a benefit to the client that I can pick up the phone and say, Hey doc, I need this bill cut x percent and get it done.
So finally I also like clients to ask me how long will the case take. So, and this is really an issue that that is pervasive in personal injury. Clients are really out there with lack of information about what is going on with the case and how long it takes. And although there’s no hard and fast rule, what I like to tell clients is generally speaking, if you’re just simply going in for conservative care, either physical therapy or chiropractic and you’re not getting injections, you’re not getting surgery, you really should not be treating any longer than intensively treating any more than three to four months. Now you can come back in for some follow-up maintenance after that. But uh, intensively to three days a week, I should not be lasting more than, than four months on the, on the, uh, on the, uh, on the long end simply because insurance, first of all, there’s a diminishing return, right? Insurance companies don’t value that type of treatment long term. So you’re then expending money, you’re then spending money that you’re, you’re likely not going to recover. Plus there’s only so much that that type of conservative care can do. At some point you really needed, needed to make a decision, okay, is this as good as I’m going to get or do I need another procedure? So hopefully those three topics, generally speaking, are helpful in evaluating or well are helpful when you go in and meet with your personal injury lawyer during that initial consultation.
*The above has been transcribed by a third party service and has not been checked for accuracy.
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