Vol. 29, No. 5 #8 (October 2006). A Wish List for Personal Injury Attorneys: One Plaintiff's Journey.

• Author: By Mary Anne Heyman

Wyoming Bar Journal

2006.

Vol. 29, No. 5 #8 (October 2006).

A Wish List for Personal Injury Attorneys: One Plaintiff's Journey

WYOMING LAWYEROctober 2006/Vol. 29, No. 5A Wish List for Personal Injury Attorneys: One Plaintiff's JourneyBy Mary Anne Heyman

It hadn't even been a week since my husband Dave left the hospital. Friends and family alike were asking if we were going to sue the truck driver. We were 23 and 26 in 1977. All we really wanted was to get back to normal. Just shy of 30 years later, my husband, although severely disabled, continues to do well in spite of a stroke suffered as a result of his injuries. As for me, I used my informal training in navigating workers' compensation, Social Security, individual health insurance, three college educations, investments, estate and retirement planning to prepare me for my Master of Science degree in Financial Planning and present practice in Fort Collins.

Dave and I are still grateful to our personal injury attorney who led us through almost six years of litigation toward a successful settlement in 1982. At the same time, I've often wished that he would have done some things differently - and armed us with some tools to lead us through the challenges we would encounter post civil suit.

This article offers my "wish list" for personal injury attorneys. I sincerely hope it validates the work of personal injury practices and encourages personal injury attorneys to "walk a mile in the shoes of the plaintiff." I truly cannot imagine our life today in the absence of the good professionals who navigated us through the civil suit process.

Getting Ready for Trial

Let's face it. Lawyer jokes and "ambulance chaser" references get laughs until you need a good personal injury attorney. Our search began and ended with my father asking his corporate attorney and Dave's tax attorney brother-in-law asking his colleagues for names. Both sources produced the same attorney. Years later, I took this "lesson number one" with me to my own financial planning practice: Referrals are earned through respect for the client, hard work and commitment to solving their problems.

In our first meeting with the attorney he told us the facts:

+ Dave was worth more dead than alive.

+ There might not be an entity with enough insurance or assets to cover our loss.

+ While we had a good case, there was a chance we...