For someone dealing with an injury, medical bills, insurance adjusters, and uncertainty about what comes next, it can be difficult to know whether pursuing a claim is even worth considering.
In this episode of The Verdict, Clarke breaks down some of the most common misconceptions surrounding personal injury claims and explain how attorneys evaluate potential cases.
Find out how a firm evaluates whether you actually have a case, why most claims never see a courtroom, and the key terms people encounter along the way. Clarke also explains what attorneys look for when evaluating a case and why ethical obligations require lawyers to pursue only legitimate claims.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
⚖️ Filing a claim is about accountability, not punishment.
🚗 Most injury cases settle without ever going to trial.
🔍 An experienced personal injury attorney can help determine whether you have a valid claim.
📋 Understanding liability and negligence is critical to any injury case.
🛡️ Insurance exists to cover damages when accidents happen.
Featured Keyword & Other Tags
Trial, claims, attorneys, personal injury, legal process, injury, medical bills
Client Links
Learn more about how Speaks Law Firm can help you: https://www.speakslaw.com/
Schedule your FREE case review: https://www.speakslaw.com/our-team/r-clarke-speaks/#contactFormTarget
Find us on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3R40YMP
Transcript (Click To Read)
Clark: I’m Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to the verdict.
Carson Grace Toomer: I’m sure you also have clients that, you know, are kind of neglected. You know, they’re, like, reluctant to sue. They’re like, uh, I don’t really want to sue. Is it, you know, are you sure I should really just file a claim, or should I, you know, kind of just figure out myself? What’s your message to them?
Clark: I don’t know if everybody has this experience, but a lot of our clients will call and say, hey, this is what happened. But, uh, you know, I don’t really want to sue anybody. I’m not. That’s not. That’s not the kind of person I am. I never been involved in lawsuits. I’m not a. I’m not a person who sues somebody. And I’m always, like, mildly offended. I mean, I am. That’s what I do, you know, But. But. But here’s. Here’s the point of that, is that I’m not suggesting that we go attack this other person. You know, I’m not suggesting we put them in jail or beat them up or any of those kinds of things. All I’m trying to say is, they broke our window, and let’s hold them accountable for fixing it. Right? We’re not trying to put them in jail. We’re not trying to break their leg. You know, if you broke your leg in an accident, I’m not trying to break the other lives. Drag. No, it’s not an eye for an eye kind of situation. It’s. They caused an accident. They’re responsible under the law for paying for the damage that they caused. Just like if I broke my neighbor’s window growing up playing baseball. We want them to pay for the broken window, the removal of the old window, the installation of the new window, the caulking, and the. We want to pay for all of it, you know, and it’s not really them that’s paying for it, if that makes you feel any better. It’s their insurance company that they have purchased and they purchased this insurance in case they ever did something that hurt somebody else. And then, uh, they’ve paid premiums for years in case something like this happens, something like this happened. Now we’ve got to show why it makes sense for them to pay this claim and how much it makes sense for them to pay under the law. And so, you know, it’s just about holding people accountable for the damage that they cause. And, uh, so when people call us and say, hey, you know, I just. I don’t I don’t want to sue anybody. It’s like, first of all, we’re probably, we may, may not ever have to sue anybody. We’re going to pursue a claim to get what was taken from you, to hold people accountable for who injured you and to get them to pay for the damage that they caused. And if we do have to sue, it will be because we have submitted a reasonable demand and they have refused to pay it for whatever reason. That is the only time that we ever go to court is when we, uh, submit what we believe is a reasonable demand and they reject that and they don’t pay for whatever reason. And then now that doesn’t make them bad either. They just, we have a reasonable minds could differ, right? And so now civilized communities don’t require people to fight it out in the street. Instead, it says by definition it’s civil. Like we go to a civil court, we say, judge, we say to the court, these are the reasons why in a complaint, in a formal complaint, these are the reasons why they owe us money, and this is how much money they owe us. Uh, we don’t say the specific amount, but this is the basic term, principles of it. They admit or deny or whatever in their answer, and then we go off to, uh, litigate these things. That is such a small percentage of cases, that’s about 10% of cases end up in a lawsuit. And then of those, a very small percentage of those get tried. So you have to file a claim in order to recover what was lost. That’s the process for holding accountable someone who caused the damage to you or to your family or whatever.
Carson Grace Toomer: Now, how do I know I have a good case?
Clark: So that can be a complicated situation. If you’re injured and you think it might be someone else’s fault, the best way to determine if it’s a good case is to contact an experienced personal injury. I wouldn’t call a criminal lawyer, a bankruptcy lawyer, or a family lawyer or whatever. I would call an experienced personal injury law firm. The people that are there are going to be, uh, trained to, uh, what they’re looking for. For example, if you talk to somebody in my office, that would be a receptionist first, and then we’ll go to an intake person, it might be escalated to an investigator or even an attorney in order to be able to assess whether you have a claim. And those people have been trained, uh, and they have lots of experience in terms of being able to determine and it may not be readily apparent. In fact, in the past couple weeks we have signed up, uh, people who were investigating to see if they have claims still. And we may investigate something and find, uh, later a piece of evidence that confirms, yes, you have a claim or causes us to understand that you don’t have a claim, and then it’s up to you to. Then if we find out you don’t have. If we find out you do have a claim, we would pursue it. We find out you don’t have a claim, we would tell you, here’s why we don’t think you have a claim. This is what our opinion is. You may want to talk to someone else and get another opinion. Maybe they feel differently about, uh, this claim. But I have a legal responsibility and an ethical responsibility where if I don’t think you have a claim, then I can’t pursue your case. I have to have a good faith basis for pursuing a claim. And in fact, we have, uh, provisions in our representation agreements that say, well, if we get into a case and we find that you are not, um, you weren’t really injured, or you’re lying about your injuries, or you weren’t, uh, you weren’t in the car, or you or whatever, you know, we will immediately withdraw from that case and not pursue that case any further. And the reality is, again, you have a professional who’s experienced and talented on the other side. They’re not gonna, they’re not gonna miss that. They’re really good at what they do and they’re going to identify that and they’re going to make you look foolish and they’re. And we’re not going to subject our reputation to, uh, that kind of, uh, uh, harm because we’re going to pursue claims where people who are legitimately injured and we can prove it.
Carson Grace Toomer: Okay, what are maybe some of the terms and phrases that somebody might hear when dealing with insurance companies and, you know, lawyers in the situation like this?
Clark: So some of the terminology that you might need to be aware of is liability. You know, uh, that’s fault. Whose fault is this? Accident, you know, and contributory negligence. Negligence. Uh, if it’s. If in order to have a successful case we have to prove that someone else was negligent, um, if they assert in North Carolina that you were contributorily negligent, in other words, you were negligent too, and your negligent negligence resulted, uh, and contributed to your injuries, then you recover zero. So they can be 99% at fault. And in North Carolina you can be 1% at fault and you recover nothing. So this investigation becomes important. And almost every suit that we file, they allege uh, the other side will allege contributory negligence. And so we have to be able to respond to that. Liens. Liens are another thing that comes up. That’s, uh, something that people might not be familiar with. Uh, and that is money that has to be repaid out of your. You’re legally responsible for repaying from your settlement. You know, premises liability is a term that comes. That comes up, and that’s, uh, if you heard at somebody else’s house or their place of business or, uh, you know, on the city sidewalk or whatever, you know, premises liability is the idea of liability on a premises. And that’s in the way that we look at that is like a tiger trap. It’s a hidden danger, uh, that causes you, um, you know what I mean? Like, a tiger trap would be a hole, and in the bottom of it are spikes. And then on top of it would be camouflaged so you couldn’t see, so the tiger would fall in or whatever. So the. Clearly, we’re not. They’re not tiger traps in downtown Charlotte, uh, that I know of. But. But the idea is it would be a dangerous condition that was somehow concealed and not apparent to you. The. That the owner of the property knew about or should have known about. So this is a situation in a restaurant where there’s an unsafe condition, or in a factory or whatever where a person’s working, there’s an unsafe condition that causes an injury to somebody. Premises liability. And so, uh, those are some of the terminology that comes to mind.
Carson Grace Toomer: All right, well, thank you, Mr. Speaks.
Clark: Thanks for joining us. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We’ll see you next time.
