Medical malpractice occurs when a health care provider fails to foresee the injurious consequences of his actions and causes injury or, in some cases, even worsens the existing injury.
Alternatively, the health condition of a person may worsen during the treatment. This is despite the good intentions and care of the health provider. Therefore, deterioration in health condition can not only be attributed to medical malpractice or negligence. In case, however, you are sure that you are a victim of medical malpractice, do not delay contacting your lawyer as there is a stringent time limitation on reporting such cases.
Medical malpractice attorneys are hard to come by since this is a highly specialized field of legal practice. Besides being well versed with the legal knowledge, a medical malpractice attorney should also have a fair amount of medical knowledge about various health conditions, tests, surgeries, hospital jargon, nursing, and other medical practices. Without this, he will not be able to cross-question the health care providers. Given this, you need to spend time effort to find the right and competent medical malpractice attorney.
The first step in this direction is to research for the right attorney. For this, you can contact your friends and relatives who have undergone a similar situation or are familiar with a person who has engaged an attorney to get medical compensation. Ask for their recommendation. Alternatively, you can also ask your lawyer to recommend someone he knows. If you do not succeed here too, the next best step is to search the internet. You will find many medical malpractice attorneys listed on the net. Go through the website of each attorney and based on a number of different criteria, judge their capabilities in regards to the specifics of your case. Read their qualifications, experience and how many cases of medical malpractices they have successfully resolved and the amount of compensation they have managed to secure for their victims from the court. Another factor to check for is whether the attorney in question specializes in complainants’ cases or those of the defendants. Also enquire whether the attorney would personally handle the case or passes it over to his deputies.
Also get the telephone numbers of his present and past clients in similar cases. Contact them and ascertain their views and recommendations on the trustworthiness and skills of the lawyer. Search extensively and then make a short list of the attorneys you think are suitable to handle your case. Meet each one of them and discuss your case. You will find that most competent medical malpractice lawyers offer free initial consultation. Yet, in your interest it is better to seek clarification about the initial consultation charges involved. This will give you an idea not only of the competence of each lawyer, but also the success rate of medical malpractice compensation suits filed in the courts
These meetings with the different lawyers will give you an idea of the level of commitment, dedication and care of the lawyer towards the clients.
Medical malpractices attorneys are busy bodies. Some of them may not be able to meet you at a short notice. Even if they meet, they may not spare as much time as you expect. So have patience and do not cross them out in a hurry.
Sometimes a lawyer may send you a questionnaire to know more about your case in order to make your first interview with him more productive. It would be in your interest to fill up the questionnaire and send it up before you meet him. Also, send him any document you have to provide more information about your case, even if the lawyer has not asked for it.
Most medical malpractices lawyers work on contingency fees, which mean they will charge a certain percentage of the compensation award as their fee if they win the case.