Information and Insight for Injured Iowans

     The success of a medical malpractice claim can often rest on your choice of an attorney. The public should know that attorneys have specialties and areas of expertise.
     As Cedar Rapids, Iowa medical malpractice attorneys, we suggest you avoid the common mistake of taking a malpractice case to the only lawyer you know, without knowing whether the lawyer has experience in this area of the law.

     Just because a lawyer did a good job on your cousin’s drunk driving charge or your neighbor’s will does not mean that he or she is qualified to handle a medical malpractice case. In fact, some of the best Iowa malpractice attorneys have highly focused practices – you are not likely to find one who also handles family law, criminal law, and probate matters. A lawyer who you already know and trust can be a useful resource in finding a qualified malpractice attorney but your search should not necessarily end there.

     For a step-by-step guide to finding the right malpractice attorney for you, go to http://www.iowamalpracticefacts.com/ 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 serious injury caused by malpractice, there are whole new list of worries in your daily life, including inding and hiring an experienced medical malpractice attorney. To ease your worries and assist with your search, we have created a step-by-step guide to finding a qualified malpractice attorney for your case. The first step is to create a list of names of Iowa attorneys who handle medical malpractice cases.

     This sounds fairly simple, but it is a very important first step. In many cases people do not stop to learn about their options before hiring an attorney. Think of it like this – when you combine the amount of time and money invested into a medical malpractice case, it could be as big an investment as a new house. You would not buy the first house that you saw without stopping to look at others in the market and exploring other options. You should not do that with an attorney either. Here are a few places to start your search:

·         Do an Internet search. The internet can be a great tool for doing an initial search for names of Iowa malpractice attorneys, but be careful. There are dangers of relying too heavily on online directories of referral services, such as finding an attorney without a guarantee of expertise or experience. The key to searching the internet is not do a general search like “Medical Malpractice Attorney.” You will get thousands of results from all over the country. Make sure to include “Iowa” as one of your search terms. Also, do not rely too heavily on the information contained on a particular lawyer’s website. The purpose of searching the internet is not to hire an attorney on the spot, but to build an initial list of names that you will investigate more closely.

·         Check the Yellow Pages. Again, here you need to be careful. Focus on what the phone book ad is telling you about the attorney. Because medical malpractice law is so complex, consider limiting your search to attorneys who list one or two closely-related specialties (for instance, “Personal Injury” and “Medical Malpractice” are closely-related specialties). Some Yellow Pages will also list subcategories of lawyers after the general heading “Attorney.” Do not forget to check the subcategory of “Malpractice” or “Professional Negligence” as well as the general “Attorney” heading.

·         Ask your friends who are attorneys. If you have a friend who is a lawyer, ask him or her for the names of attorneys who practice primarily in medical malpractice. The odds are that your friend does not handle medical malpractice cases him or herself, but your friend probably knows attorneys who do. Your friend can give you the names of Iowa attorneys who have a good reputation for handling your type of case. If you have names come up from every lawyer you ask, those names are probably the malpractice attorneys with the best reputation in the area.

     For a step-by-step guide to finding the right malpractice attorney for you, 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.

      Being a smart consumer is easier than ever nowadays; we have newspapers, phonebooks, and the Internet, all at our fingertips. However, due to this ease of getting the information quickly, many people only look at one source of information and don’t do any more research on their own.  As a medical malpractice law firm based in Cedar Rapids, IA, we have witnessed the damaging effects that can arise from failing to thoroughly search for attorneys.

     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 necessarily 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 or any other single source of information.

     For a step-by-step guide to finding the right malpractice attorney for you, 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.

      While searching for a qualified medical malpractice attorney in Iowa, you will no doubt notice the various distinctions and honors that some attorneys have listed. Before picking an attorney based on these credentials, you should find out how attorneys are given these honors and what it can tell you about the attorney’s experience. One such honor is being listed in The Best Lawyers in America.

     The Best Lawyers in America is a publication that is updated every two years and is one of the largest guides to attorneys in the United States. In order to be listed, you need to be nominated by someone who is already a member, and then go through a review process conducted by other attorneys around the country.

      The Best Lawyers in America book details which attorneys focus on certain areas like medical malpractice. A listing in The Best Lawyers in America does not guarantee that a lawyer is right for you, but it does demonstrate that this attorney is well-respected in the legal community.

     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.

     To many malpractice victims, the thought of meeting with possible attorneys and evaluating their experience can be overwhelming. As Cedar Rapids, Iowa medical malpractice attorneys, we understand your concerns and want to help your search.   The best way to determine which attorney to hire is by asking questions. One such question is “Are you a member of the Iowa Academy of Trial Lawyers?”

     The Iowa Academy of Trial Lawyers is an invitation-only organization limited to the top 250 trial attorneys in Iowa. In order to be inducted, a lawyer must be nominated by a current member and then be evaluated by all Academy members. The Academy executive committee then selects inductees from among the qualified nominees. Membership in the Academy demonstrates a lawyer has a good reputation for trying cases in Iowa’s courtrooms.

     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.

     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.

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 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 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.

     There are many factors that should be considered when deciding on a medical malpractice attorney. Some factors can be evaluated on paper while others can only be judged in person. After making a list of potential attorneys, comparing their written materials, and narrowing down the list, the final step is meeting with the few attorneys left on that list. 

     Call each of the offices on your short list of potential attorneys and schedule an appointment to speak with an attorney. There is absolutely no substitute for sitting down with an attorney to determine if he or she will be a good fit for you. In order for an attorney to represent you well, you have to be comfortable with the attorney and trust him or her. In addition to your general feeling about each attorney, it is also important that you ask each of them the right questions. 

     We have written a free 35-page guide for medical malpractice victims, which can be ordered at Iowa Malpractice Facts.  It contains some questions you should ask about the prospective attorney’s experience in medical malpractice claims.