Workers' Compensation: Tips from 40 Years

• Publication year: 2018
• Author: JACK GOODCHILD, ESQ.

Workers' Compensation: Tips from 40 Years

JACK GOODCHILD, ESQ.

Encino, California

Last August I began the 41st year of my involvement in the litigation of workers' compensation claims. In the course of those years I've learned a few things that would be helpful in pursuing a successful career in this field.

1. Everyone matters: Once you've graduated from law school and received your license to practice law, you might be tempted to think too much of yourself. Get over it. Everyone you have contact with, from the building janitors to the clerks to the vendors to the judges and staff and opposing counsel and doctors and their staff, deserve to be treated equally and with respect. The old saying that what goes around comes around rings true; courtesy and proper demeanor will go a long way in advancing your career. The people you deal with will remember how you have conducted yourself, and everyone talks to everyone else; it gets around.

2. Know your file: There's no substitute for being prepared. Know your file, the medicine, and the law that applies to the facts and allegations in the matter you're handling. When an issue arises, you must be prepared to deal with it, and you can't appropriately handle issues in a vacuum. Different facts and different clients might require different approaches to the same issue. Organization and documentation of your file are essential. Give careful thought to maintaining your files such that you don't need to "rediscover" a file each time you work on it.

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3. Get to know your opponents and fellow practitioners: A lot of what you need to do on a particular file depends on the proclivities and integrity of your opponent. With some opponents you can cut to the quick and get procedural issues resolved quickly and amicably. With others you need to be technical and proactive so as to avoid deliberate delays in the ability to gather the evidence you need to prove your case.

4. More evidence is not necessarily better evidence: A tendency to pile on evidence follows from the thinking that more is better. However, that's not always true, and you might alienate judges by making them look for the proverbial needle in the haystack. More evidence isn't necessarily more likely to prove the truth of a proposed fact or proposition. Too much volume might cloud the record, making it more difficult for the judge to find the necessary evidence. Remember, too, that the QME or AME reports will have already summarized and referenced most of the...