There are several strategies that the best and most successful Maryland trial lawyers do to increase their chances of obtaining significantly higher damages awards at trial. Intense preparation is, naturally, first and foremost among that list. Too many inexperienced personal injury lawyers leave the damages component as an afterthought, focusing all their energy on proving the liability component — i.e., proving who was at fault, who was negligent, who breached a duty owed to the injured victim, and who was at fault for causing the injury. To be sure, proving liability is absolutely critical to prosecuting a personal injury case. Without proving liability, there is no recovery at all. But it is a shame to win a hard fought jury verdict in favor of your client, only to have the jury return a damages award that is too low and does not account for the full extent of pain and suffering that a client has endured, which by the time you get to trial, is usually measured in years.
Building the damages component of a personal injury case needs to start from the day the lawyer meets the client. The personal injury lawyers at Silverman, Thompson, Slutkin & White use an exhaustive damages questionnaire when we meet with clients. We follow-up with our clients regularly to see how they are feeling, how they are managing their pain and how they are recovering. We follow-up with our client’s doctors regularly. We make our clients problems our problems and try to understand what it is like to walk in their shoes. The knowledge that is accumulated by our attorneys during the case preparation phase is absolutely critical to providing an effective presentation of damages at trial. This knowledge allows our attorneys to create an accurate and detailed frame of reference so that the jury understand the full extent and significance of our client’s injuries. With this type of knowledge and understanding, our attorneys are less inclined to accept defense counsel’s argument that jurors in “more conservative” counties won’t award significant damages. Defendants love to use that argument as a settlement tool. I believe, however, that potential jurors in every county truly understand when someone is injured and has been suffering. It is the responsibility of a good lawyer to lay the groundwork for damages from day one so that they can give an effective presentation at trial.
Please contact us for a free consultation regarding your personal injury or accident case.