What Are My Responsibilities In My Personal Injury Lawsuit? What Do I Have To Do?

Bail Bond Cowboys wants the public to have answers to the myriad of questions that surround the civil legal system and your legal rights. We bring those answers to you in the form of video interviews by Attorneys.Media of legal experts in your area and across the country.

Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media

“What does the person have to do in the lawsuit? So many people think I am just going to hire an attorney and not have to do anything else. But, what do they have to do?”

Andrew Dósa – Personal Injury Attorney – Alameda County, CA

“Well, the practical answer is it’s always nice if they’re following my advice and following my suggestions. But that’s just management. The reality is the client has a relatively minor role. It’s a little bit heightened… If we take a step back and look at what happens after the client has hired me. What I want to tell the client is, ‘you don’t have to talk to your insurance company. You don’t have to talk to their insurance company. You just have to go and meet your doctor and concentrate on getting well as soon as you can. I’ll take care of the busy side of things.’ I’ll send them a letter. I will typically send them a copy of a letter I’ll send out if I’m requesting records or if I’m requesting an opinion letter or if I’m requesting a wage-loss report from an employer. So, the client has this information. I just tell them this…’you probably would prefer not to have to talk to me, but if you’re going to hire me, at least I’m the one that you’d be willing to talk to’. When I’m giving them information, they know I’m taking care of them, and they can respond if they have a question. But mostly, they just want to know that things are moving.

Once we get into litigation, they have a heightened responsibility which is typically having to do with discovery. Which is where each side has to share information that they have with the other. So. I will have the client come into my office. We go through the questions that are asked of them and we put them in a written form and send them out. Or, they may have to prepare for a deposition. Typically, the next step is, if we have to mediate, then they’ll sit with me at the mediation session and then we’ll work with the mediator and then try to resolve the case. But other than that, and going to trial, really, the client’s role is mostly just to communicate with me. And I just give them updates. So, like we did at the smaller, less stressful stage at the beginning, this is just a little bit more of the same.”