Traumatic Brain Injury

An individual who has suffered a brain injury often looks perfectly normal to the casual observer, but in reality has had his or her life completely altered as a result of the brain injury. Effective advocacy in these cases requires the trial lawyer to know how to educate the jury regarding all of the problems – physical, cognitive and emotional – the client has, and then to motivate the jury to render an award that will fully compensate the client for a life changed forever…

It is not at all unusual for an individual who has suffered a mild brain injury to have the imaging studies of his or her brain read as normal. Indeed, many healthcare providers fail to diagnose their patients’ brain injuries because of this phenomenon. However, there is current technology with imaging studies to demonstrate brain damage that is not discernible by conventional x-ray, CT, or MRI. The trial lawyer representing individuals who have sustained brain injuries must have a working knowledge of this current technology…

Brain injury cases are often long, contentious and intrusive ordeals for our clients, individuals who have suffered brain injuries. Typical defense tactics include: (1) subpoening every prior medical or other record it can find regarding our clients; (2) requesting that our clients undergo defense medical examinations by experts who usually have a track record of opining that someone’s problems are not the result of a brain injury; (3) conducting surveillance of our clients by private investigators; (4) interviewing acquaintances of our clients, and discussing our clients’ brain injuries and cases with them; and (5) combining these efforts and others to find a theory, other than the brain injury, which the defense can sell to the jury to explain our clients’ problems…