“How did I lose my case?”

A very sweet woman called me with hope that she could somehow turn around her case.  Unfortunately she came to me too late as she had gone to trial and lost.

The gist is that she was injured in a public service job and reported the accident right away.  She also immediately sought out medical treatment and told her doctor what had happened.  She’s a very honest woman and in the medical records it was also noted that she had pain and problems while performing a recreational activity.

Long story short is that she says the defense attorney twisted her words to imply that she had somehow been hurt away from the job which isn’t true.  She wanted to know how she could lose her case.  Most of all it seemed that she wanted to vent and was a little desperate for an explanation.  I was happy to oblige.

I haven’t read the trial transcript, but I looked her case up on line and noticed that her employer has a really seasoned attorney in their corner. On the other hand, she hired someone local to her Chicagoland suburb and picked a lawyer who among other things says on his website that he does evictions, business litigation and collection work.  It’s the exact profile of the type of lawyer that you don’t want in your corner if your case is disputed and has to go to trial.  There are simply many better options who are more qualified and spend their day handling only work injury cases.

Some lawyers try to be all things to all people and it’s their clients who get hurt.  In this case there was nothing that we could do as we don’t take over once a case has gone to trial.  It turns out that it was too late to appeal any way as her lawyer for some reason told her that to appeal she’d have to pay him $1,000.00.  That’s not how Illinois work comp appeals work.

Bottom line is that nothing can guarantee a win and in almost 20 years of doing this, I’ve seen people who should lose end up winning and people who should win that end up losing. But those examples are rare.  When you get a qualified firm in your corner who is willing to fight for you, it truly gives you the best chance at a good result.  Qualified means that the lawyer’s practice is at least 80% workers’ compensation cases and for more difficult cases it should be all that they do.  If you see on their website that they are handling any cases which aren’t injury related, then it’s a sign that they are a general practice lawyer and probably not the best fit for you.