Recent changes in Arizona law allow private equity investors to invest in your personal injury case without you even knowing.  A lawyer allowing a private investor to have a financial stake in a client’s case would, until recently, immediately lead to disbarment of the lawyer. Now, suddenly, such conduct by a lawyer is permissible! The question is—who do these changes in Arizona law help: you, your lawyer, or the Read More

  In a deposition, a party or witness answers questions from a lawyer. A court reporter records the questions and answers and then prints them in a book. The testimony is under oath. In litigation, my clients must give deposition testimony to opposing lawyers about the facts of their accidents, and the injuries, harms, and losses that the accidents caused. Of course, the opposing lawyers are trying to ask the Read More

Many people tell me they've struggled to get a copy of their medical records. As a personal injury lawyer, I frequently deal with this issue and want you to know that under federal law, specifically the "Hi-Tech" law, you have the absolute right to access your medical records. The Hi-Tech law gives you two important protections: 1) the right to obtain your medical records without unreasonable delay; and, 2) the Read More

In personal injury cases, it's common to hear insurance adjusters or defense lawyers say "this kind of injury has a maximum value of $100,000" (or some other number). However, injuries themselves do not have a value. What truly matters is how the injury has affected your day-to-day activities and relationships. This matters even more than the physical pain you have experienced.  The most important Read More

Many of my clients have had the misfortune of experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after a serious car crash, in addition to their other injuries.  The sudden, terrifying, and life-threatening violence of a car crash creates the trigger for PTSD to develop.   PTSD from a car crash is more than just feeling “shaken up.”  PTSD leads to physical changes in the brain caused by stress hormones. The Centers Read More

There are two ways to find out what a personal injury case is worth. One is the insurancecompany way. The other is the way of the trial lawyer storyteller. Insurance companies value cases robotically. They add up the medical bills, make a tableof the diagnosis codes from the medical records, and then feed this data into software thatthey have developed. The software then spits out a dollar amount. To the insurance Read More

If another person in a road rage incident deliberately harms you, can the insurance company get out of paying for the damage? In some cases yes, because of something called “the intentional acts exclusion.”  The intentional act exclusion means that if someone does something on purpose to harm someone else, the insurance company won't pay for it.  For example, if someone decides to run someone else over with their car Read More

After a car crash, it's crucial to understand how your insurance company determines the value of your totaled vehicle. Here are secrets behind the process—a data-driven calculation using proprietary software. 1. A Computer Determines Your Vehicle's Value To value your total loss vehicle, the insurance company relies on a computer. This automated process generates a value based on information about vehicles similar to Read More