Don’t hide things from your attorney.  For some reason, there are some clients out there who want to hide facts from their lawyer.  One client wanted to hide from me the fact that she was smoking pot at the accident scene.  Well, the insurance company found out because it was in her medical records from the hospital!  If she had told me about this information, there may have been ways to deal with it.

Another time, a client came by for an initial consultation.  I asked her about her work duties.  She said, "Why do you need to know that?" Then I asked her about her past accidents.  She replied, "Well, how is that important?"  I knew from the get-go that this client was not the right fit for me.  She was very reluctant to answer my questions.  She viewed me as the enemy and wasn't forthcoming with information.  I don't ask these questions because I'm nosy!  I ask these questions because the information gathered helps me evaluate the case.

Some clients hide previous accidents from their attorneys.  In many cases, the clients make the sole determination the accident must be irrelevant and therefore they either fail to mention it or the deliberately hide it.  Again, this is not going to help your lawyer prepare for your case.  If you’re hiding things from your attorney, you have bigger problems.  The information is going to come to light at some point.  If you tell your attorney about the matter, your attorney will be better equipped to handle it.  Once litigation begins, they will indeed have the right to that information and they will find out.  

If you go to the doctor's office for an exam, you have to tell your doctor what's going on.  This isn't the time to play games.  Therefore, the lesson to be learned is to not hide anything from your attorney because it simply doesn’t help anyone.  The other lesson here is that sometimes, your lawyer may not be right for you.  However, there are times when the client may not be a good fit for the lawyer.  It's a two way street.

Please don’t be compelled to talk to everybody about your personal injury case.  Remember there is something called confidentiality that exists between an attorney and his or her client.  That confidentiality does not exist between the client and anyone else - even their spouse.  

I’ve had some cases where my clients tell friends and family information about the accident case that isn’t terribly helpful to their case.  If those people are called to testify, they might testify against you and whatever you’ve told them is fair game.  You can’t claim confidentiality of any sort.   You can’t even claim it if the witness is your spouse!  Spousal privilege only applies to criminal cases.  

Therefore, unless it is imperative that you share certain information with other people, please keep the facts of your accident case to yourself.  Share the information about your accident with your doctor and with your attorney and no one else unless it’s absolutely necessary.  Of course, if you do share information with others, always make sure it’s consistent with your claim!  What you say to other people can come back to haunt you later on. 

When dealing with an insurance company or attorney’s office after a car accident, you will inevitably be asked to provide photographs depicting damage to your vehicle and any other vehicles involved in the accident, photographs of all bodily injuries sustained, and any and all additional photos taken at the scene. On occasion, photos will be taken by police officers, but that is rare.  However, don’t rely on others – you should take some of your own. In fact, take tons, and from many different angles, so that everyone from a lay person to an accident reconstructionist will have an easier time forming an accurate picture.  The reason you have to take photos from different angles is because photos are only two dimensional and sometimes it's hard to fully appreciate the extent of damages if you only take a couple of photos.  Also, take some close ups and take some from further distance to show the entire car.

If taking photos at the scene, make sure to take pictures of skid marks.  Skid marks are faint imprints left on the road by tires during the braking process, before the tires actually skid. These marks only remain visible for 24-48 hours.  A photograph of impending skid marks leading into actual skid marks provides an accident reconstructionist with the necessary perspective to determine the speed of the braking car. A photo of a measurable object, such as a shoe, beside an impending skid mark will make distances more clear.

Obviously, having a camera on hand is very important. You might want to consider keeping a disposable camera in your glove compartment or with your road hazard kit in case of an accident.  You can never take too many photos of the damage or the scene.

Just because an accident occurred, and it wasn’t your fault, does not necessarily mean that some insurance company is going to pay your medical bills and other related expenses. There needs to be a showing that another party or entity actually caused the accident to occur, whether it is a car accident or other kind of injury matter. You must be able to show that someone was negligent at the very least and that negligence caused your injury to occur. Many times clients tell me that they were involved in an accident but it wasn’t anyone’s fault. If we cannot show the other party did something wrong or negligent, we will likely be unable to prove that you should recover any kind of compensation. 

Aside from a basic showing of "negligence," we also have to prove you had "damages" from the incident.  Just because you can show someone was negligent doesn't automatically mean you get compensated.  If you had no injuries, then you can't legitimately bring a claim...especially one for personal injury.  You can of course bring a claim for property damage if you actually incurred property damage.  Therefore, there needs to be a showing of negligence, and there needs to be a showing of actual damages incurred.  Without both, you are wasting your time.

Many people are afraid to hire a lawyer because they figure they will get less compensation since the attorney typically takes 1/3 the recover as a fee.  In some case, that might be true and a good lawyer should tell you if you are better off without a lawyer. 

However, in 1999, the Insurance Research Council (a nonprofit organization supported by leading insurance companies across the United States), conducted a study and found that insurance companies generally pay higher settlements to people who use an attorney versus those to try to handle matters on their own.  Generally, they noted that people who use the lawyer received on average 3 1/2 times more money and settlement than people who settled on their own without a lawyer.   That certainly does not mean there is a guarantee of recovery.  It only means that in some cases, you are indeed better off hiring a lawyer who can zealously represent you and get the most compensation they can. 

I always use the analogy of river rafting.  If you go river rafting, you always have a professional river guide in your boat because they’ve been down the river and they know how to get you down the river safely.  It would be silly (or dangerous) to go down the river without a guide.  Having a guide doesn’t guarantee your safety, but it sure improves your odds of arriving safely.  A good personal injury attorney has been “down the river” and can guide you effectively.

Sometimes clients call my office and they say, “Rob, I was involved in a personal injury accident. I really don’t know what to do.” A car accident occurred, T-bone, rear-end, whatever the case may be, and they really don’t know what to do so, and so I want to spend a few minutes here as I talk to you from my office giving you some ideas about what to do if you were injured in an automobile accident, and you have a claim that you’d like to bring. So there are a few things to keep in mind. 

First things first, make sure that you take photographs of every vehicle that was involved in the accident. If you have the energy at the scene of the accident, and you have a camera or perhaps a cell phone that has a camera, a camera in it, take pictures but not only of your vehicle. I have a lot of clients they bring me lots of pictures of their vehicle only, and that’s fine, and that’s very helpful, but if you can, take pictures of all the other vehicles that were involved in the accident as well. The other thing that I would add is take pictures from several different angles because a lot of times because a picture is a static image, and it’s a two-dimensional image, sometimes it’s very difficult to assess the damage just by looking at it in, from one angle. If you’re taking a look at a vehicle with your own eyes you have three-dimensional ability, and you can, you can kind of assess the damage a little bit better. 

So if you’re taking a photograph, make sure to take photographs from several different angles so that you’d better tell the story. If you don’t have photographs, it’s not terribly helpful when you’re trying to convince a jury or an adjuster or anybody else of the severity of the impact. So pictures really do tell a thousand words so to the extent that you can take photographs. If your vehicle has already been towed to a yard, see if you can get to that yard or have a friend or a family member go to that yard and take some pictures of your vehicle and the more the merrier. There really is no limit as to far, as far as how many pictures are good. Also, again, pictures of the other vehicle are very, very helpful. 

Also, you want to make sure that you provide your lawyer with all of the auto insurance information. We need, as your attorneys, we need to know your policy number, what insurance company you had, whether your insurance was in force at the time of the accident and also what kind of coverage you had in your insurance policy, and that information is very important because it provides us with a contact person.

Also, it’s very helpful to find out if you had something called medical payments coverage. Sometimes your own insurance company will pay for your medical bills if you need to turn to them to do that. Of course you can use your own health insurance as well, and sometimes you can go to a doctor and see them on what’s called a “lien” basis, and a lien basis means that the doctor will provide you with physical therapy and care, etc. if it’s appropriate, and that doctor will expect to be paid later on when you settle with the responsible party. But anyhow, get all of your insurance information that when your attorney contacts your insurance company, they have all the information they need. Also, very important, make sure you have the insurance information for all the other parties involved to the extent that you can. Sometimes you’re unable to get that at the scene of the accident, and I understand that. 

Many times that will be on the police report. Speaking of which, very important, if there is a police report, please provide it to your lawyer. It’s going to have a lot of important information in there, sometimes insurance information, also the officer’s opinion about the responsible party, sometimes there is information in there about witnesses, the severity of the impact, and how the accident occurred. So the police officer’s report, which by the way, is not the definitive answer, if you will, as to who is at fault, but it’s helpful, and it’s one of the pieces of the puzzle that will be very helpful to your lawyer. Sometimes you won’t have the police report. Instead you will have a police report card that the officers give you at the scene and it will have the police report number on it. Give that to your lawyer so they can secure the police report from the responsible agency. Also sometimes officers take photographs at the scene of the accident and your attorney can obtain those as well. 

Another thing that you can think about is property damage estimates. If your car has been damaged, make sure you get a property damage estimate for your vehicle, maybe even two. Take it to a shop, a dealership, wherever you want to take it and make sure you get a detailed property damage estimate because sometimes people say, “Well it was a total loss.” Well, a total loss is fine that helps me a little bit, but a total loss doesn’t really mean much except that the value of the car was less than what it cost to fix the car. So if you have a $1,000.00 vehicle, and you have $1,500.00 worth of damage to that vehicle, which isn’t very difficult to do by the way, you might have a total loss. But that doesn’t really tell the attorney anything about what exactly was damaged in the automobile accident. 

Your property damage estimate is very helpful because it’ll show whether there was a any frame damage, any damage to the doorframe, any damage to the axle of the vehicle, wheel alignment issues, etc., bumper support structures. Those kinds of things, those kinds of bits of information in a property damage estimate can be very helpful to the attorney when they’re advocating for you. So even if you’ve been told, “Oh, it’s a total loss,” see if you can get a property damage estimate nevertheless. Sometimes your own insurance company will provide with a detailed analysis of what was damaged in the accident, and of course, it’s unlikely, but if you have a property damage estimate from the other party, provide it to your lawyer as well. 

Also, you should get medical care right away. Don’t wait around hoping that you’re going to feel better. Sometimes people try to tough it out, and all they’re doing is hurting their own case because the longer you wait from the date of the accident to when you first seek medical treatment, the longer you wait the more the responsible party, the insurance company for the responsible party, is going to doubt whether you had any injuries at all. So make a list of all the doctors that you go to and make sure that you seek medical care right away even if you just make sure you’re all right because if you wait too long, they will doubt whether or not you were injured. And also, every time you go to the doctor after an automobile accident, make sure you mention to the doctor why you’re there. I have many clients they go to the doctor and they say, “Oh, my back hurts or my neck hurts,” or something like this, and the doctor provides care, but they never mention to the doctor that it was because of an automobile accident, and as a result, the absence of that information, some insurance adjusters will take a look at that and say the absence means that it wasn’t related to the car accident. You were there for some other reason. So you want to make sure you always provide your healthcare providers with the information that is relevant to the matter so that it ends up in your medical file. 

Also, when you go to the doctor, make sure that you mention everything that bothers you. Start from the head and make your way down even if you’re not terribly sure, make mention of it to the doctor because sometimes some people try to tough it out and they don’t mention their back because, “Oh, it, I don’t want to trouble the doctor or, or I don’t want to trouble the physical therapist,” but the problem is that all they’ve done is hurt their own case because once again, the absence of information in medical records, as far as some insurance adjusters are concerned, the absence of information means it never happened. So make sure that you always are very mindful of what you are telling your healthcare professionals, and plus the healthcare professional wants all the information so they can provide you with the best care.

Finally, if there were any witnesses to the accident, make sure that provide that information to your attorney. Sometimes the witness information is in the police report, but sometimes it’s not. Any passengers in your vehicle might also be witnesses to the accident. So once again, it’s very important to provide your lawyer with more information than less. Some people go to the lawyer and they sign up with the attorney and they think everything’s going to happy magically. Not quite. We still need assemble information because remember, insurance companies don’t pay out of the goodness of their heart. I mean of course there are always very nice adjusters and in many cases, they’re trying to do the best job they can, but they don’t write you a check just for fun. They need to have evidence. They need to have information, and so you need to provide that information to your lawyer so your lawyer can advocate for you. ​

The sky is blue.  We all know it.  Insurance adjusters need more “information” before determining if the sky is blue!  Well, I’m probably being silly here but only to make a point - there are some adjusters who stall by requesting additional information about everything!  You can tell them you lost wages from your job.  That won’t cut it.  You can send them a letter from your employer.  That won’t cut it.  You can send them tax returns.  Guess what? They want “more information.” 

Some insurance adjusters drive me crazy by requesting lots of unnecessary information. It seems that regardless of how much documentation you give them, they always want more. In my opinion this is nothing but a stall tactic. These are people who can’t see the forest from the trees. You’ll provide them with adequate information regarding lost earnings but unless you have a video of you sitting at home in pain, they just won’t believe you. These insurance adjusters are making life difficult because they are trying to postpone the settlement of your case. They realize in their heart of hearts the additional information is not going to make any difference in their offer.  Nevertheless, they will string you along and they will continue asking for additional documentation! 

Not all adjusters are so myopic.  Many of them get it.  Usually the ones who have been doing it long enough actually know what they are doing.   However, some give others a bad reputation….just like some lawyers give the profession a bad reputation.  When I worked for a major insurance company, there were some adjusters who wouldn’t give their own mother a nickel.  Then when a jury awarded the plaintiff money, these same adjusters called the jury “crazy.”   I think some adjusters simply confuse the standard of proof in a civil case with that required in a criminal case.  They need proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” when in fact, a “preponderance of the evidence” is the actual standard.  Just like my Mother told me, “Some folks are difficult just to be difficult.”

Sometimes, insurance company adjusters will deliberately delay a settlement.  They are getting a steady paycheck, and often have no incentive to settle your case.   Sometimes, they hate their job, so they’re going to get even by making your life miserable.  They know that they have all the time in the world, while you are the one who is under time pressure.  After all, in most cases you need to file a lawsuit within a certain period of time.  Some insurance adjusters simply try to run the clock against you.  Even if you have good insurance, you may find that it is very difficult to get them to make payments and reimburse doctor bills.  They are in no hurry.  Usually the other party’s insurance won’t pay your bills until you’re done treating.  Sometimes, they won’t even return your call.   They understand that you are getting dinged by doctors and bill collectors.   They figure the longer they take, the more desperate you will become.   The more desperate you become, the more likely you will be to accept their low-ball offer.