If another personal injury lawyer would ask Pittsburgh wrongful death, auto accident and slip and fall attorney Bernie Tully for any secrets I have learned over the last 30 years of doing these cases, it is like this; the secret for success for a personal injury lawyer is to listen to what their clients tell them. It sounds pretty simple, right? It seems so basic that just about everyone acknowledges that should be done. But I am continually amazed how often that advice is ignored. Why is what the injury client tells you so important to a Pennsylvania trial attorney? Simply because he or she is living the injury.
Personal injury lawyers are great at getting the client’s records, answering interrogatories, doing depositions, filing motions on behalf of the injured client and getting prepared for the client’s trial. However, the injured client is the only one who is living day to day with the injury. Only he or she can tell you what they are going through. No amount of medical records or other documents is going to convey that information so clearly.
It is only by talking to the client on a regular basis that you learn the client cannot fix dinner like he or she used to or he or she cannot sleep in their own bed at night because of pain from the injury or that the client needs help with grocery shopping now when they didn’t before the accident.
In my experience, this is very important to a jury. They want to know the particulars about how the injury has affected the accident victim. They can listen to the doctor testify in a medical way about the physical results of the accident and what happened to the client’s body. However, even the doctors cannot convey one thing to the jury that the client can convey. What is that? It is the emotion and feeling and frustration that the client has in being able to perform daily activities like they did before the accident.
Pittsburgh wrongful death, auto accident and slip and fall attorney Bernie Tully can tell you from personal experience that the issue of feelings resonates more to a jury than anything else. Why? Because that is what a jury can relate to. Everyone on that jury knows what it is like to be frustrated when you want to do something but cannot because of physical limitations. That is, in my opinion at least, what drives a jury verdict and gives maximum $$$$ to the injured victim.
Some lawyers are tremendous trial attorneys in the courtroom but they are missing something else. That something else is feeling and caring for their client and what they are going through. When you don’t have that connection, the jury can see it, feel it and sense it in a heartbeat. That is, my opinion, what makes a really good trial attorney. Namely, to feel what the client is going through.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.
Bernie the attorney