Auto Accident Attorney in Las Vegas
Auto accident cases are one of the most common types of personal injury actions out there. The most common injuries for auto accidents are injuries to the neck and back, but an auto accident can affect many different areas of your body.
Minor Injury Accidents
Many auto accidents can be resolved without even the need to file a lawsuit. If you have minor injuries and you obtain conservative treatment (like rest, anti-inflammatory medication, or chiropractic care), many times your pain can subside after a period of several weeks or months. In that circumstance, we still recommend having an attorney send a demand letter for you instead of dealing with the insurer yourself. It’s a cliché, but having an attorney deal with the insurer can help boost your recovery substantially because the attorney knows what to ask for and generally understands how claims professionals work internally.
Spinal Injury Accidents
Then there are those cases where your injuries fail to resolve with conservative treatment. The most common injuries we see here are spinal injuries, although certainly many other injuries occur as well. The most common situation we see is where someone has had degenerative changes in their spine (i.e., a breakdown of the components in the spine that gradually progresses with age) that were without symptoms until this traumatic event occurred. At that point, these spinal issues become symptomatic and they rarely if ever return to their pre-accident state without some type of intervention.
In cases like this, the defense attorney plan is typically to try and dig up any evidence of having a sore back or neck and use that to impeach (attack the credibility of) the plaintiff and try and claim that everything is being made up to make money. They try and claim that any type of sore back or sore neck in the past means that you had a pre-existing injury, and that their client cannot be to blame. They also hire experts whose sole job is to opine as to how the data does not suggest a traumatic event and to basically call the plaintiff a malingerer (faker). There is a whole industry of expert witnesses in Las Vegas who can be counted on to testify a certain way in any situation; there are defense experts who will testify that the plaintiff is faking no matter what the facts are and, honestly, there are also plaintiff experts who will relate every injury in the world to a car accident.
Here at Power Play Legal, we try and pick doctors who have integrity and tell the truth, even when it’s not always the best news. We don’t always have a choice in physicians, because our clients will get referrals or choose their own physicians without consulting us – which is normal. But when we have a choice, we try and get our clients to see doctors whose only priority is making them better. Juries respond much better to a doctor who cares more about treatment and results than supporting a certain side of the case.
The bottom line, though, is that you need to be prepared to have your credibility attacked without limitation by a lot of defense firms in Las Vegas. Make sure you get enough deposition preparation time with your attorney beforehand so you aren’t surprised by the sometimes mean-spirited questions you may face in deposition. It will feel very personal to you, because they’re attacking your truthfulness. But you just need to remember this is just a job for the defense lawyer, but it’s your life.
Here at Power Play Legal, we’ve seen it all and we know many of the defense firms in town — the good ones and the bad ones. We can tailor your litigation strategy based on the extent of your injuries, the defense firm involved, and the strength of your treating physicians to try and make sure you get the best recovery with the least amount of risk.