Did you get severely injured and have questions about what to do after experiencing medical malpractice? Contact our Florida attorney today.
1) Choosing The Right Lawyer
Medical malpractice cases are very specialized personal injury cases. It is extremely important that in your search for the right medical malpractice attorney you find one with experience. These are some of the most complicated cases that you could ever be involved in. They are difficult to handle for those who are not well-versed in the laws connected with medical malpractice. There are a set of laws on the books in Florida that govern and control medical malpractice cases. Always ask your lawyer: Are you familiar with the Florida Medical Malpractice Act? Have you handled medical malpractice cases? How many? Have you handled one similar to the one I have?
Typically, these are not cases for young inexperienced lawyers. You need a lawyer who’s been through it, been in the trenches, has filed these claims, has navigated through the Medical Malpractice Act and knows what to do. Because if mistakes are made, the claim can be lost. Time is short in medical malpractice cases so it is extremely important that you get a very experienced lawyer who can help you through this process. If you suffered what you think is a loss at the hands of a healthcare provider, hospital, doctor, call us right away. We will sit down and go over things and see how best we can help.
2) Don’t Make These Mistakes
We have handled many medical malpractice cases in northeast Florida where we practice,including Duval County, Nassau County, and surrounding areas. Looking back over those cases, there is one mistake that is head and shoulders above other mistakes that we see made. That is people wait too long to get to a lawyer. Florida’s Medical Malpractice Act has a two-year statute of limitation period, meaning you have two years from the date that you suspected something negligent happened to bring a case. Two years goes by very quickly. Many times, we will get a case where much of that period has gone. It doesn’t leave much time to evaluate cases. These cases are expensive and before a lawyer will advance those costs, he’s got to have some idea of what the case is about. If you don’t give a lawyer enough time, you’re going to lose the services of that lawyer perhaps. You’re limiting his ability to do an effective evaluation. That’s the main mistake that we see being made.
The other is not getting medical care to address the problem that the healthcare provider inflicted upon you, for whatever reason. Sometimes, that is put upon the injured plaintiff, ironically, at a trial. If you’ve suffered a medical malpractice in Nassau or Duval County, don’t wait. Call immediately. We will sit down, and at a very minimum, educate you about medical malpractice, the ins and outs of it, and the practicalities of suing your own doctor, if that’s the case. We’ll figure out a plan that makes sense. Call us and we’ll sit down and chat.
3) Understand the Timeline
We are often asked how long it will take to wrap up a malpractice case. In northeast Florida, Nassau County, Duval County, and the surrounding areas, it takes 9 to 14 months at an absolute minimum, probably longer, simply because malpractice cases are expensive and complicated. There are lots of things that have to happen before you are even allowed to file a lawsuit. It takes an extremely long time to penalize cases. We’re required, under most circumstances, to hire professionals to evaluate the cases. An affidavit is needed that says there’s a reasonable prospect of a malpractice. That takes time, so 9 to 14 months is really a baseline to go to have the case prepared.
Once the case is filed, you can expect a couple of years in litigation on average. These are very complex cases. They’re very complicated cases. These are questions we handle at the very beginning in initial conferences with clients so that their expectations are set appropriately. These are not cases that are over and done with quickly in a couple of weeks. If you have suffered a loss due to the negligence of a healthcare provider, or a doctor, or hospital, call us. We’ll go over things and see how best we can help you.
4) Cost of a Lawyer
Often in the initial conference with clients regarding a potential medical malpractice claim, we end up talking about fees. It’s a very unique conversation because the medical insurance industry back in 2004 passed a constitutional amendment that drastically reduced the attorney fees that we would be allowed to charge. The lawyers recognized it for what it was very quickly on both sides, the plaintiffs and the defendants. A waiver document was created simply because malpractice cases are complicated. They’re expensive. They’re time consuming. They’re labor intensive.
Lawyers who do this cannot function without the fees being back to historically percentages that the former Supreme Court laid out. It’s a scale of 30%, 40% and some other percentages in larger cases. The labor restores that to fees basically 30% and 40% and there are different percentages in other kinds of malpractice cases. That’s the attorney fee cost. There are litigation expenses, court costs, expenses of the case that can be pretty high that can end up in six figures and complicated cases, cases that go to trial, certainly will be in that range. Those are all good questions to be asking, questions that get answered at the initial conference. If you have a malpractice case in Duval County, Nassau County, or any of the surrounding areas, call us. We’ll sit down. We’ll go over this and a lot more. We’ll figure out a way to best help you.
Did you or a loved one get severely injured from the negligence of a doctor in Florida and have questions about what to do after experiencing medical malpractice? Contact our Florida medical malpractice lawyer at Paul Boone Law today for a free consultation and case evaluation.
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