WHY MISSOURI CAR ACCIDENT LAWYERS SHOULD MEET WITH YOUR DOCTORS

As a Missouri car accident lawyer, I am often astounded by other lawyers who say that they feel they should never meet with the client’s doctors.  I think this is completely bad advice.  I even suggest that when deciding on hiring a Missouri car accident attorney that you ask whether they intend to meet with your doctor.  I am not suggesting that they should meet with your doctor for no reason; however, it should be done before taking your doctor’s deposition.  Often times it is common practice for a lawyer to schedule a deposition of your treating doctor and then meet with them for the first time thirty minutes before the deposition begins.  This is pointless and will often do little to increase the value of your case.  Rather, I suggest that any good Missouri car accident lawyer schedule an appointment with the doctor weeks, if not months in advance of the deposition.  This allows much more time for the doctor and the lawyer to talk about the case and identify any issues which should either be hammered on at depositions or avoided.  It also gives the lawyer time to prepare exhibits that he/she is going to use during the deposition.

Case in point, I actually finished meeting with a treating surgeon this morning in a client’s car accident case.  The client suffered a severely broken leg which he repaired surgically.  Often times, I never know before meeting with a doctor he/she will say that my client was totally healed and if there are any continuing complaints, it must be because the client is a faker.  Believe it or not, there are plenty of doctors out there like this.  However, today the doctor was very open in sitting down and talking to me to explain how these injuries may cause problems and early arthritis years down the road.  He additionally explained how we could better detect this by getting my client in for another x-ray, even though her symptoms have mostly subsided for the time being.  These are great suggestions that I would not have followed through on had it not been on the doctor’s advice.  Additionally, if I was just meeting with the doctor fifteen or thirty minutes before the deposition began, we would have never had time to do any of these things.  On the other hand, it’s just as equally important to meet with your treating doctor plenty of time in advance to find out if they hold some type of bias against car accident victims or any type of litigation process.  Several years ago, I was involved when a client was hospitalized six days after her car wreck.  Following that, she essentially had continuing back pain over the next two years.  Even though she never had a day of back pain before the wreck, when I met with her treating doctor, he later told me he could not say that the wreck was the cause of all the pain because he did not know her beforehand.  This was an absolutely ridiculous position and I later found out that the doctor had been sued several times in the past for medical malpractice.  Obviously this was a guy who was completely jaded against the system and had ill feelings on anyone who filed a lawsuit.  Again, if I was just finding out these opinions fifteen minutes before the deposition began, I would have been in for a world of hurt.

Thus, when deciding who may be the right Missouri car wreck attorney for you, make sure to ask whether they go the extra mile to meet with the doctors well in advance to scheduling the depositions.  If they tell you they will just meet with them shortly before the deposition, run, do not walk, to the door and continue your search.

Joshua P. Myers is a Missouri and Illinois personal injury attorney based in St. Louis, Missouri.  He focuses his practice exclusively on serious injury cases throughout all of Missouri and Illinois.  If you would like to speak with him concerning a potential case or just have questions in general about Missouri car accident settlements, feel free to reach him toll free at 888.956.2487.  It is always free to talk about your case and there are never any fees until he recovers on your behalf.