1. Preliminary Evaluation

An attorney in our office will make a preliminary assessment of your claim, based on information provided to us by you or a referring attorney.  Often, for various reasons, a decision is made at this stage not to proceed further with a claim. Those reasons may include a potential conflict of interest — for example where the potential defendant in your claim is a doctor for other clients or is an expert witness in one of our cases — or the provable damages are not extensive enough to justify the risks and costs of pursuing the claim.

2. In-House Records Review & Research

Establishing liability or fault depends, in most cases, on what is in the medical records.  In the second stage of the evaluation process, we will send for copies of the relevant records.  It may take as long as four weeks or more to obtain them.

The initial review of the records will be done by an attorney in our office.  Depending on the volume of records and the complexity of the case, the review may take several weeks to complete.  

3. Review by Experts

The next stage is evaluation by an appropriate expert. Usually, the issue of negligence must be evaluated by someone in the same field, i.e., a surgeon for surgical negligence, a nurse for nursing negligence, etc.

Sometimes, issues other than that of negligence must also be evaluated by an expert.  For example, a different expert may be used to evaluate causation (whether and to what extent the negligence caused injury to the patient) or the extent of damages.

We work with many medical experts who have evaluated potential claims and testified in our cases, but in some instances we need to locate a particular expert with whom we have not previously worked on a case.  This may involve contacting experts from different areas of the country who have written articles about the particular medical subject.

We determine on the basis of our review process whether to proceed with the claim.  Reasons for not proceeding may be problems in proving negligence, causation, or damages.  Because of the complexity and cost of handling medical negligence cases, there must be a weighing of the risks and costs of pursuing a claim against the potential recovery from a settlement or verdict.

4. Representation Agreement

If the initial review indicates that this is a case which we would want to pursue, we will enter into a formal attorney-client relationship under the terms in a written retainer agreement providing for a contingent (percentage) fee.  There is no fee if no recovery, and we advance the costs of the lawsuit (to be reimbursed at the time of resolution).