Information and Insight for Injured Iowans

     There are many ways to measure the experience and capability of medical malpractice attorneys. Not only are there awards and memberships, there is also the honor of teaching at a law school. The answer to the question “Are you on the faculty of any law school?” could determine what Iowa medical malpractice attorney you should hire.

     Law schools will often invite distinguished lawyers and judges to teach classes to their law students. A good number of lawyers volunteer their time to judge law student competitions or give guest lectures. Very few lawyer and judges are asked by a law school to teach an entire course. Lawyers who teach entire courses at a law school, but also practice law, are often described as “adjunct professors” or “adjunct faculty.” Adjunct professors are typically selected by a law school for their expertise in a particular area of the law.

      To learn what other questions to ask your potential medical malpractice attorney, go to Iowa Malpractice Facts to download a free 35-page guide.

     If you have any questions or immediate concerns, do not hesitate to contact us

toll-free: 1-888-546-6529.  We will do our best to answer your questions and there is no fee for an initial consultation.

     After a truck accident, there are bound to be repair and medical bills and can cause a lot of added stress. While it may seem as though the truck driver’s insurance company representative is trying to help you and relieve some of that stress, that is not their job or in the best interest. You should remember that this is a professional who is trained to use a number of tactics to make sure that his or her insurance company pays you as little as possible. One such tactic is telling you their company won’t pay if you don’t act right away.

     Insurance company representatives will often try to pressure you to do things for them right away. They often suggest that you will not receive fair compensation if you don’t act “right now.” This suggestion is bogus. Iowa truck accident victims generally have 2 years from the accident date to seek compensation for their injuries either by settling their claims or by filing a lawsuit. While there are some situations where the law requires you to provide notice within 6 months, you only have to act when the law requires it – not when the insurance company asks.

     To learn about other tactics insurance companies use against truck accident victims, go to Iowa Truck Accident Facts to download a free 35-page guide.
     If you have any questions or immediate concerns, do not hesitate to contact us
toll-free : 1-888-546-6529.  We will do our best to answer your questions and there is no fee for an initial consultation.
 

     Finding the right attorney takes time and effort. However, it can all be worth it when an experienced attorney helps you reach your desired settlement or verdict. An easy way to determine the caliber of an attorney is by asking if they have legal malpractice insurance. 

     An attorney in Iowa is not required to carry malpractice insurance. Some do not. We believe that carrying malpractice insurance says something about a lawyer’s sense of responsibility. Mistakes can happen. Clients should be protected if an attorney’s mistake causes harm. How much trust can you place in a lawyer who does not care enough about his or her clients to carry malpractice insurance?

     Find out other questions to ask your potential attorney by going to Iowa Car Accident Facts to download a free 35-page guide.

     If you have any questions or immediate concerns, do not hesitate to contact us toll-free:  1-888-546-6529.  We will do our best to answer your questions and there is no fee for an initial consultation.

When proceeding with a medical malpractice lawsuit, it is important to know the types of compensation that you or your family would be eligible for receiving. This can save time and can determine what types of documents you or your attorney may need to complete.
In each and every case, the injured patient has the burden of proving that he or she suffered harms caused by the malpractice. In Iowa, only certain types of harms are eligible for financial compensation. Those types of harms include:

• Past Medical Expenses: An injured patient may be entitled to be compensated for the cost of all reasonable and necessary medical treatment that was caused by malpractice. If that medical treatment has already been paid for, the party who for that treatment may be entitled to reimbursement.
• Future Medical Expenses: An injured patient may be entitled to be compensated for the cost of future medical treatment caused by the malpractice if the patient can produce expert testimony stating that specific medical treatment will likely be reasonable and necessary in the future.
• Past Lost Wages: An injured patient may be entitled to be compensated for his or her lost wages (or lost time away from a business) if malpractice causes the patient to be unable to work. Typically, lost wages will only be compensated if an injured patient can show that attempting to work after an injury was either impossible or against a doctor’s orders.
• Loss of Future Earning Capacity: If malpractice impacts a patient’s ability to work and earn money in the future, a patient can ask for compensation for the likely decrease in his of her ability to ear. Typically, recovering this type of compensation requires hiring an economic expert to review past employment records and tax returns in order to calculate likely future earnings.
• Past or Future Loss of Function of the Body and/or Mind: If malpractice causes a patient to lost normal function of his or her body or mind, the patient can seek compensation for this loss. While a claim can be made for temporary loss of function, for the reasons explained above, successful medical malpractice cases typically require a permanent disability of the body or mind.
• Past or Future Physical or Mental Pain and Suffering: If malpractice causes bodily suffering, discomfort, mental anguish or loss of enjoyment of life, an injured patient can seek compensation for these harms. In our experience, it is rarely possible to base a successful medical malpractice case solely upon temporary physical or mental pain and suffering.
• Past or Future Loss of Consortium: In Iowa, loss of consortium comes in two varieties- loss of spousal consortium and loss of parental consortium. Loss of spousal consortium recognizes the impact of an injury or death upon the relationship between husband and wife. Loss of parental consortium recognizes the impact of an injury or death upon the relationship between parent and child.
• Punitive Damages: Punitive damages are not intended to compensate for harm at all. They are designed to “punish” someone who has intentionally committed a wrongful act so that they will be discouraged from making a similar choice in the future. Punitive damages are rarely awarded in medical malpractice cases because an injured patient can rarely prove that a medical professional intended to injure a patient.

For more information about medical malpractice in Iowa, go to Iowa Medical Malpractice Facts to download a free 35-page guide.

     There is a lot of confusion following a truck accident. Many drivers aren’t sure what steps to take next, and some truck accident victims assume they are not obligated to do anything if it wasn’t their fault. As Cedar Rapids, Iowa personal injury attorneys, we feel it is our duty to correct this assumption.

     If you are injured in an accident caused by a semi driver’s mistake, you have a personal injury claim. Under Iowa law, a truck accident victim who wants to be compensated for a personal injury must be able to prove:

·         That the trucker was negligent

·         That the trucker’s negligence caused damage to the injury victim

·         The amount of the injury victim’s damages

     If the truck accident victim cannot prove any one of the above three elements in a court of law, he or she is not entitled to compensation. That means the burden of proving everything—from identifying the important witnesses at the accident scene to providing documentation of all injury-related losses—ultimately  falls on you, the accident victim.

     For a more detailed explanation of an Iowa truck accident victim’s legal obligations, go to Iowa Truck Accident Facts to download a free 35-page guide.

     If you have any questions or immediate concerns, do not hesitate to contact us toll-free: 1-888-546-6529.  We will do our best to answer your questions and there is no fee for an initial consultation.

       After investing time, money, and energy on a car accident claim, the last thing you want to do is say you were the at-fault driver.  This can occur very easily, however, if you are not careful.  Here in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, we have seen people accidentally take the blame of a car accident.

     Paying a fine for a traffic offense can be used against you as an admission of guilt.  Any testimony at a legal hearing can be recorded and used against your interests.  Before taking either action, you should talk to an attorney-either one you have hired yourself or one provided to you by your insurance company.

     To learn more ways to avoid damaging your car accident claim, go to Iowa Car Accident Facts to download a free 35-page guide.

     If you have any related questions or immediate concerns, do not hesitate to contact us toll-free: 1-888-546-6529.  We will do our best to answer your questions and there is no charge for an initial consultation.

     There are many questions to ask an attorney to figure out if they are right for you. One particular question is if they are a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum. This could shed some light on the amount of experience the attorney has.

     The Million Dollar Advocates Forum is a national organization of attorneys who have obtained a verdict or settlement of a million dollars or more for a client. Past results do not necessarily predict future success, but it is important to know what kind of past results an attorney has had. If he or she has not won any big cases, the lawyer may not have enough experience to handle your case. At the time this blog was written, only 21 lawyers in Iowa could answer this question with a “Yes”, and three of them are in this office in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

    To learn other questions to ask your potential medical malpractice attorney, go to Iowa Malpractice Facts to download a free 35-page guide.

    If you have any related questions or any immediate concerns, do not hesitate to contact us toll-free: 1-888-546-6529.  We will do our best to answer your questions and there is no fee for an initial consultation.

     While it is true that semi-truck accidents are very different from small vehicle crashes, there is a misconception about who can handle these types of cases. It is not true that any attorney who handles a car accident case can also handle a truck accident case.

     Many people (including some lawyers) mistakenly think of truck accident as simply larger automobile accidents. Not only are the vehicles involved very different, but the law and regulations governing semi-truck and the people who drive them are also very different than the basic rules of the road. Many of these laws and regulations are uniquely designed to protect other motorists from the negligence of trucking companies. Located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, our office believes that understanding the crucial details of commercial motor vehicle law is essential to handling a serious trucking case. Without that kind of knowledge, an attorney could very well make any one of the mistakes that can be found in our free 35-page guide by going to Iowa Truck Accident Facts.

     If you have any related questions or any immediate concerns, do not hesitate to contact us toll-free: 1-888-546-6529.  We will do our best to answer your questions and there is no charge for an initial consultation.

     While you may believe you or your family’s condition was worsened due to poor medical treatment, you usually will need the agreement of another doctor to make a strong malpractice claim.  It is important to know which doctors can and will help you, and how to use their expertise to strengthen your claim.
     In order to prove that a doctor committed malpractice in Iowa, an injured patient must usually present evidence showing that what the doctor did was different than what the average doctor- with the same experience and training- would have done. This evidence must usually come from another doctor who specializes in the same type of medicine as the doctor who is suspected of malpractice. In other words, if an emergency room doctor made a serious error during your treatment, you will usually need another emergency room doctor to testify that the care you received was “malpractice.”
In order to find out whether medical treatment qualifies as malpractice, an attorney has to gather all of the important medical records for an injured patient and then have those records evaluated by a doctor who will look for treatment that is “below the standard of care.”
    Usually, Iowa doctors will not publicly criticize the care provided by other Iowa doctors. That means that Iowa malpractice victims often need to have their cases evaluated by out-of-state doctors. A review by an out-of-state expert is usually the only way an injured patient can be assured of getting an honest assessment of questionable medical care.
     For that reason, a medical malpractice attorney must have contacts with medical experts around the country and enough expertise to gather the right records and ask the right questions. As you can probably imagine, contacts in the national community ad medical-legal expertise can require years to develop. That is why it can be important to put your trust and your case in the hands of an attorney who has real experience handling medical malpractice cases.
     To learn more about medical malpractice in Iowa, go to Iowa Malpractice Facts to download a free 35-page guide.
     If you have any questions or any immediate concerns, do not hesitate to contact us toll-free: 1-888-546-6529.   We will do our best to answer your questions and there is no fee for an initial consultation.

     A quick search on the internet can be very helpful when looking for quick answers or easy instructions. This is not true when looking for car accident attorneys. Attorneys can have a huge impact on your case and you should only hire attorneys who can handle that responsibility. Internet services do not ensure quality, experienced car accident attorneys, and should be regarded “with a grain of salt.”

     What we are talking about here is the type of service – either over the phone or on the internet – where you are directed to describe your situation and give your city and state. In exchange, you are then provided with the name of an attorney to contact. A lawyer is listed by an attorney referral service or website not because they are good at the specific area of law, but because they have usually paid a fee to be listed. You won’t get a guarantee of the recommended lawyer’s expertise or experience. You need to have more information available to you to make an informed decision. Without more information, it is dangerous to rely solely on an attorney referral service or website’s recommendation.

     To learn more tips for finding an experienced car accident attorney for your claim, go to Iowa Car Accident Facts to download a free 35-page guide.

      If you have any related questions or any immediate concerns, do not hesitate to contact us toll free: 1-888-546-6529.  We will do our best to answer your questions and there is no fee for an initial consultation.