Our Virginia Beach personal injury law firm hosted a seminar for members of the Virginia Beach Bar Association. This Virginia Beach, Virginia lawyers voluntary association includes lawyers who are based in Hampton, Newport News, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Suffolk and in Virginia Beach, VA. Over 100 lawyers, including personal injury lawyers, attended the hot topics in personal injury seminar as did several judges.
Below is an excerpt from that seminar featuring information from Virginia injury lawyer Jim Lewis on how to make the proper “legal diagnosis” for a potential medical malpractice case in Virginia.
Unfortunately, the laws are not favorable towards plaintiffs in a Virginia medical malpractice case. That is why it is so important for a lawyer to do their due diligence when talking with a prospective client about pursuing a medical negligence claim.
For example, an injury lawyer needs to take a detailed medical history of the prospective client. This includes obtaining the names of all the doctors and hospitals that treated the client in the alleged malpractice.
The lawyer should gather pertinent medical records, which include physician office records, hospital charts, radiology studies, and so forth. The lawyer should then compare the medical records to the information provided by the prospective client. After that, the lawyer should do preliminary research on the medical issue that could be the focus of the claim.
If all of this information points to the direction of filing a claim, the lawyer still needs to obtain expert review by a doctor, optimally in the same field of the doctor who is alleged to have committed malpractice. Once you get expert approval, then the lawyer should proceed with filing a Virginia medical malpractice claim.
As you can see, this is a very time consuming, and potentially expensive process, which is why it is important for both the lawyer and the client to understand that the claim has to be strong in order to have a shot in a Virginia court room.
To learn more, take a look at the firm’s free consumer guide featuring tips on medical malpractice law.
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