Do you want to talk to an attorney about your possible personal injury case, but don’t know where to start? Attorney Brad Parker discusses the process of a personal injury case in Bedford, TX. Associate attorneys and legal assistants of the Parker Law Firm Injury Lawyers appear in this video.

What happens in a personal injury case in Texas? Whenever anybody first comes in to visit with us with a case we sit down and fully go through the facts as we know them right now. We not only want to know how the accident or crash occurred but the injuries that were sustained, the types of doctors, etc.

Once we both made a decision that you’ll hire me and I’ll represent you, our office then contacts the parties that we believe are responsible for the incident and let them know that we’re on board and all communication should go through us. We then also monitor your medical appointments, and your physical recovery, and start gathering medical records to document during this period of time.

We may or may not file suit, it depends on your case, but typically what we like to do here is, we will contact the insurance company that’s representing the other side let them know we’re involved and put together a packet at some point to try to resolve the case without having to file a lawsuit.

If we have to file a lawsuit or if we have to file immediately because we need to get an investigator out then you have to go through the discovery process and that can be everything from sending out requests for production of documents to sending written questions back and forth, depositions will be taken (that’s when you sit down in front of a court reporter and give sworn testimony), they’ll inevitably be motions filed to try to dismiss your case, responses and motions filed back and forth, and that process can go on unfortunately, because of the sum of the backlog and the nature of “the beast”, from anywhere from nine to 18 months once the suit is filed.

At some point (and we always try to push quicker rather than later) it will be set for trial and then through the trial process, the jury will render its verdict and then a decision about appeals has to be made, but typically we tell our clients who come in to expect two years from the date of the injury before the case will be resolved, now, that’s not always true and that’s probably the long outside period but I’d rather tell you two years and get your case resolved in nine months than tell you nine months and it be two years.

I think you’ll have a better appreciation for me and what we do, but we try to push the case as hard and as fast as humanly possible. One thing that all clients need to understand is that we cannot and will not resolve your case until you have been released from your doctors and we have a good understanding of the extent of your injuries and whether or not they will require future medical treatment, because you can only settle with the defendant or the person who’s responsible one time.

Once you settle with them you’re forever barred from going back and trying to get more money from them, should other problems arise in the future, so a lot of the reason we have a delay is not necessarily the litigation process but the healing process, the human body has to heal because we can’t get the case resolved until it does.

CATEGORY: General