Personal Injury Cases – Initial Disclosures and Expert Disclosures

EXPERT DISCLOSURES

At TLB, we have a highly skilled and trained team of law graduates that help you organize, analyze and summarize your medical records. The team provides its services to personal injury law firms across US for niche assignments like Initial and Expert Disclosures Assignments. An expert witness can either help in winning your case or can bring adverse effects to your case. Therefore, it is important to first identify all the expert witnesses in your case who can be used at trial to present evidence for your client. Missing out the name of any, can impact your trial unfavorably. TLB’s team carefully goes through all the documents and gathers the names and addresses of all experts likely to be called at trial to testify concerning the case. This anticipated testimony, which is sent to the defense, are identified prior to the trial so that their records are carefully scrutinized, and accurate info is put together.

Preparation of an Expert Disclosure: 

An expert disclosure can be prepared by a review and summary of the medical records of the medical providers, traffic accident reports, the client correspondences and other relevant documents. It will be detailed out so that the opponent can determine if it needs an expert to rebut or address any of the issues raised. In addition, we even detail out enough so that any other expert can understand the exact reasons and data underlying the opinions expressed. This includes sufficient detail so that others can take the same data, apply the same, acceptable methods, and obtain the same results. Importance is given to causation and disability, if any, of the plaintiff arising out of the subject accident/ incident. The information regarding the plaintiff’s employment, earnings, lost wages, DOB and life expectancy, the anticipated testimony of the experts (mostly a physician or provider), a complete statement of the opinion of the experts and the basis and reasons therefore, the data or other information considered by the expert in forming the opinions, any reports such as X-rays, CT scans, MRI etc. to be used as a summary of or support for the opinions, are categorized and noted in bullet points in the document, adhering to the formats of the law firms or the courts. In short, the team thoroughly analyses every single info in the file to find you the right experts.   

Preparation of an Initial Disclosure: 

Initial disclosure is a document filed in court proceedings (pre-trial stage) by which a party provide to the other parties. TLB’s skilled team have been trained on obtaining name and details of each individual likely to have discoverable information (may include parties to action, witnesses, investigating officer, health care providers, insurance personnel’s handled claims, and persons otherwise related to the incident and post incident situation), along with the subjects of that information that the disclosing party may use to support its claims or defense. They are capable of reviewing the all available documents, electronically stored information, and tangible things that the disclosing party has in its possession, custody, or control and/or may use to support its claims or defenses. Further, the team can compute each category of damages claimed by the disclosing party and make sure your case is the strongest.  

Our Capabilities: 

  • Study and validate the nature of the injury and/or illness. 
  • Substantiate the symptoms, treatment and prognosis of the injury and/or illness based on the records available. 
  • Summarize the opinions of retained experts and non-retained experts.  
  • Inform the firm about missing responsive medical records or document. 
  • Locate expert witness in the subject medical specialty.
  • Complete Statement of all opinions to be expressed and the basis or reasons therefore. 

Types of Services: 

  • SOAP format, which is the general medical summary (tabular form) with synopsis for personal injury cases like motor vehicle accidents, slip & fall, dog bite, premises liability.
  • Drafting disclosures as per the prescribed formats by the respective attorneys.  
  • Ensuring that the contents in the disclosures are relevant to the subject accident/incident. 
  • Co-ordinating with US paralegals to get more missing information about medical providers or other info to support our claim. 

Uses of Expert Disclosure: 

  • Determining the extent/severity of injury and assessing claim. 
  • Preparing individual expert’s opinion/ suggestions regarding such injuries. 
  • Determine if the plaintiff has unrelated medical conditions which need to be factored into a determination of his earning expectancy for settlement purposes. 
  • Preparing the plaintiff to testify at a hearing or deposition. 

Benefits:  

  • The ability to free up in-house paralegals and attorneys to focus on core professional commitments.  
  • Improved processes and efficiencies to decrease case life cycles and increase law firms’ bandwidth to take up more cases. 
  • Improve efficiency and turn-around time for law firms and ensure long term cost reductions. 

TLB’s team is available 24/7 to cater to your needs. Reach out to our team for more info on our services.