Effectively fighting in court, much like fighting in other aspects of life, takes a great deal of preparation. The time between filing a suit and waiting for your day in court is fraught with slights and pitfalls.

Even a relatively simple personal injury trial can run into complications. Knowing what to expect as the process continues is the best way to temper expectations. In the end, complications don’t make the process harder, only longer.

Part of this is the nature of deriving truth claims. Everyone has a side, and it takes time to process conflicting information. A drawback of the adversarial system of justice is the lack of a human factor int eh tactics.

Below are the most common delays and complications that one may encounter in a personal injury trial.

Discovery Phase / Information Hunts

The longest component of a case is in the pre-trial discovery phase. This interrogatory phase includes asking state and local authorities for information regarding your case.

This includes injury reports from doctors, statements from witnesses, and footage or other on-site evidence.

In this phase of the trial process, legal teams ask for information pertinent to the case but are not under an obligation to present it as such. This leads to ‘document dumps’ in which hundreds to thousands of pages of material are delivered and it takes time to comb through to get to useful info.

This isn’t to run out the clock, as the statute of limitations applies to the filing of a case, not the proceedings. No, this is to make it cost more hours for your legal team to get the job done, delaying the window until compensation is secured.

Pre-Trial Settlements

With you feeling desperate that you need money now and worried if you will have the funds to see a case through to the end, an insurance company or opposing legal team offers a pre-trial settlement.

This popular personal injury trial complication offers a small sum up-front to avoid a larger cost to the individual or company later. The more delays they cause, the more it’s assumed you will look for a settlement rather than continue.

Pre-Trial Motions

In conjunction with the previous tactics, a series of pre-trial motions are also employed. These legal filings implore a judge to dismiss a case, rule out certain lines of evidence, or demand that certain restrictions be applied to the case.

Even a strong case, put before a judge that has granted enough motions, can turn into an uphill struggle. Options and avenues are winnowed down unless countered or rejected. Once again, countering these actions takes time and effort.

Find Support

It’s difficult to pursue a personal injury case. Acting in your best interest when injured is difficult, acting when in financial distress more so. Don’t let yourself be pushed around, contact us for help and guidance.  We are here to level the field and deliver an uncomplicated resolution to your injury case.