We are all aware of the fact that human beings are social animals. The term social animal means that human beings form communities to sustain themselves in their daily lives. This practice has been the foundation of all human civilizations throughout history.
However, when multiple individuals are involved, clashes and conflicts are bound to happen, which often lead to uncalled-for situations. Therefore, to prevent such circumstances, law and order came into being.
Laws Pertaining to Personal Injury
Legal order has evolved through various stages of history and forms the complex systems that are currently being in the modern world. Needless to mention, different nations have a different set of laws that govern their respective citizens.
Being a complex system, the law has branched into various categories as well, where some lawyers and attorneys specialize in those particular categories and cater to their respective clients.
Coming back to the question asked in the beginning, we have to first understand the meaning of personal injury in legal terms. Legally, personal injury pertains to those injuries that are inflicted upon an individual or a group of individuals which consists of any physical or mental harm by an external agent.
Any kind of loss to property does not fall under the category of personal injury.
Personal Injury law has been prevalent only after the Industrial Revolution. The primary reason for this is that any bodily harm due to operating heavy machinery or for handling industry-grade substances, which could cause a hefty monetary loss were practically non-existent before that era.
The injuries inflicted were usually of a lesser scale and no major legal intervention was needed.
With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, more and more people got involved in various kinds of industries where the risk of physical harm increased manifold. Therefore, to protect these individuals from the risk, specific laws catering to personal injuries slowly seeped into the legal system of various countries.
In the modern world, personal injury law forms one of the major branches of the legal system especially in the western world, where human rights are more pronounced.
Personal Injury Law broadly falls under the category of civil law and specifically under tort. The definition of tort is quite similar to that of the personal injury itself except for the fact that tort includes property losses as well. Personal Injury can happen because of the following reasons:
- Traffic Accidents or more commonly car crashes
- Accidents at work, especially where heavy machinery are handled
- Tripping Accidents in areas undergoing any construction or repair works
- Any form of physical assault
- Using or handling a defective product
- Medical negligence (dental included)
- Occupational hazards
- Extended exposure to toxic product imbibed by any individual or organization
- Mental or emotional harassment of any kind
Of all these causes’ car crashes form the most common cause of lawsuits related to personal injuries, closely followed by medical negligence.
Basics of a personal injury lawsuit
The most important things of any personal injury lawsuit are:
- Personal Injury Lawyers or Attorneys
- The party who suffered the loss commonly known as claimant or plaintiff
- The party who is assumed to have inflicted the loss on the claimant
The main intent of such a lawsuit is that the party in an injury is compensated usually in the form of money by the accused party either through a settlement outside the court or by a fair judgment by a court-appointed judge.
Since most personal injuries are primarily caused due to negligence in some form or other, four major components need definite proof, which are:
- The accused party should have a duty of acting reasonably and responsibly as per the situation
- The accused party have breached the aforementioned duty
- The accused party’s action of breaching the duty has caused considerable harm to the claimant or plaintiff
- The claimant or plaintiff have incurred monetary losses when the accused party breached their duty
Compensation provided in place of such personal injuries depends on the severity of the injuries caused due to the duty breach by the accused party.
Personal Injury Lawyers: Duly reaching to the injured
Now, answering the question that started the article in the first place, any personal injury attorney or lawyer who has a vast clientele often swear by the virtue of empathy that makes them favorable to those who have suffered losses due to personal injury and are in dire need of fair judgment.
The empathetic attitude of personal injury lawyers is their USP in serving such a variable clientele. The next on the list is the good network. In this era of the internet, networking begins with having a digital reach to the customer base. Almost all the law firms like for example, Ketterman Rowland & Westlund not only have their websites but have also taken social media and search engine results to increase their reach to potential customers.
Having a digital reach helps potential customers research various law firms within the comforts of their own space and time. Good networking and marketing make any organization whether a law firm or other companies reach out to the masses in an effective way.
While empathy and good network make up the introductory gelling of the attorneys and their clients, the primary tactics to hold the client base is an efficient and effective performance where the percentage of wins for that particular attorney or respective firm would ensure the clients’ trust thereby adding to the networking skills as discussed previously. Moreover, the time needed to close a case also forms a basis of client and attorney integration.
Another factor that differentiates good law firms from not-so-good ones is the documentation and the paperwork. When these boring tasks are magically completed by the attorneys, they often gain more brownie points from the clients.
It is because not only paperwork is boring but they are tedious as hell, which often discourages the client to file a lawsuit. When such roadblocks are cleared, then we can say that justice is served.