The Basics
There is no guarantee that a malpractice claim will win in court or by a settlement. Negligence on the doctors part has to be established by a jury. In some cases, if the claim for negligence is particularly strong, the doctor may elect to try to settle the matter out of court. This usually results in a reduced sum for the plaintiff, but it also spares both the plaintiff and the defendant the costs of going to court. Your lawyer will help you negotiate a settlement if one is offered.
There are numerous different reasons that medical malpractice claims are brought. In some cases, the doctor may have failed to notice a serious illness and that failure to diagnose may have led to the patient suffering needlessly. In other cases, the patient suffered because a procedure was completed incorrectly. Doctors are held to very high standards and there are specific duties that they owe their patients when they take them on and medical malpractice is basically an area of the law that allows patients some recourse if they don’t live up to those expectations.
Filing in these cases can be very intimidating. One of the most common reasons that people hesitate is because they don’t want to share embarrassing medical information with anyone but their doctor. Sharing information with medical malpractice lawyers is every bit as safe as sharing it with doctors.Client-attorney privilege is one of the oldest established forms of legally protected communication in the world.