Attorneys are the experts of the law on the land. They earnestly studied it for many years in a law school, and then passed the bar exam to get a license. A couple of years in legal practice and you have a person who is an expert in the field of law. Lawyers are adept at translating and implementing laws into people who have legal needs.
There are different types of lawyers according to their field of expertise. Corporate, finance, intellectual property lawyers, as well as estate planning, tax, and criminal defense lawyers are the common types of lawyers. There are also personal injury attorneys who deal with injuries and accidents of any nature that you might need as well.
Different lawyers face a myriad of challenges in every case. Same goes with the personal injury attorneys. They handle easy cases to the most complicated ones, and they need to go through the tedious process for the sake of winning the client’s case. Here are some of the challenges of personal injury attorneys while doing their job the best way they can.
Gathering Data and Evidence
Winning any case in a court requires enough and substantial pieces of evidence to prove your claim. Otherwise, it will weaken your statements, facts, and data presented in proving your argument on trial. These pieces of evidence serve as the concrete representation of your words. Hence, you have to make them as concrete as possible.
Gathering data and evidence is one of the challenges that any attorney has to go through. The personal injury attorney has to be quick in collecting these pieces of evidence because they might be misplaced, changed, forgotten, and worse, hidden.
Because of the technological advancement, the surveillance cameras like closed-circuit television or CCTV have been of significant help in solving many cases for many years. The CCTV’s are placed in different locations, especially the most frequented areas like buildings, parks, and even in the highways to record everything and save in storage.
Aside from recorded videos, there are CCTV’s that are capable of recording audios as well. However, it’s still the discretion of the court whether to accept it as valid evidence after scrutiny of the expert.
Moreover, personal injury investigation is a crucial and convoluted process of evidence collection. It includes a forensic analysis in each piece of evidence to understand a particular situation or scenario that happened in a crime scene. That’s why licensed private investigators are needed to conduct the personal injury investigation accurately.
Means of Data and Evidence Collection
There’s a serious restriction on how surveillance is conducted in collecting information. According to the law, there are guidelines to strictly follow in getting pieces of evidence and information from other people to help strengthen your claim and argument.
If these guidelines are not properly observed during the investigation, corresponding penalties will be given by the court. Also, the pieces of evidence presented will be barred and tagged as of no use in the case.
The law permits anyone to conduct investigation and surveillance as long as the guidelines are significantly observed. It must not be in the form of stalking, trespassing, getting data and information from other people without permission from the owner.
That’s why the means of data and evidence collection gives more challenges to the personal injury lawyers. When these substantial pieces of evidence strong enough to win the case are hard to discover and procure, it adds more to the delay of the case. Worse, it might be the reason why you’ll lose it at the end of the day.
Time Constraints
Accidents and other injuries of any nature tend to happen very fast, and the rescue team is so quick to respond too. That’s why there’s a need to collect data and evidence as quickly as possible. It’s another challenge for investigators and lawyers in gathering evidence and conducting forensic analysis.
The case must be resolved as soon as possible because the pieces of evidence tend to disappear or get disturbed slowly. The memories of the eyewitnesses of the incident tend to fade, especially the small but essential details. Also, the injuries of a person from accidents of any form begin to heal gradually.
As these pieces of evidence tend to lose their strength as proofs of an argument in the court, the investigation must be fast and efficient in resolving the client’s case as soon as possible. Most of the cases in personal injury require the skills of the licensed private investigators to fast track the result of the investigation as well as winning the client’s case.
Active Lying
Lying is the only thing that may derail a case and may convince an attorney not to pursue the case. The act of lying actively will completely eradicate any chances of getting a fair settlement and is relatively one of the biggest challenges of every personal injury attorney.
Clients may lie in different manners. Sometimes they do it on purpose, sometimes they don’t, thinking it’s going to help the case. Besides lying, failure to disclose prior medical information is also a difficult barrier to overcome. When the client fails to disclose the medical information to the attorney, he or she might not be able to disclose it to the treating doctors as well.
It’s difficult without disinformation and misinformation to get a fair settlement. When the insurance company believes the client is not entirely truthful, settling the case becomes extremely difficult, and sometimes, almost impossible.
Takeaway
People need lawyers for legal assistance just like they need doctors for medical and health reasons. It is your right to protect yourself from the unjust people around the unsafe environment. That’s why the state helps you practice your right by providing laws to observe on the land that you’re part of.
The challenges of the personal injury lawyers discussed above are just a few of those they actually experience in a real setting. They aim to practice what is right and wrong according to the law. They want to win the case of an innocent victim in the court, and to provide justice and assistance in response to the victim’s legal needs.
