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Personal injury law is a specialized area of litigation that seeks compensation for those injured by someone else’s negligence. As a paralegal in this field, you play an integral role in every case from intake and prelitigation to trial preparation and settlement. Every case—every client—will benefit from your expertise.
Join senior trial paralegal and author of The Indispensable Paralegal, Candess Zona-Mendola, for an overview of the personal injury paralegal career. This course will look at a typical personal injury case and offer insights into this important and ever-changing field. You will learn about the unique aspects of personal injury cases: understanding mild and traumatic injuries, case intake, medical records, demand letters, trial preparation, and more.
This program is useful for those new to the field of personal injury/tort law, as well as practicing paralegals who want to review and improve their craft. Attorneys may wish to provide this course to their paralegals to enhance their skills, or as an introduction to the field.
In this 60-minute course, Candess Zona-Mendola will cover:
- Knowing Your Docket
- Knowing the injuries, comorbidities, injury causes, potential outcomes, and ways to educate yourself
- Case Intake
- Getting to know your client and how the incident has changed their life and the lives of their surrounding family
- Prelitigation Investigation
- Police/incident reports, medical records, ongoing treatment, future medicals, photos/videos, witness statements, medical liens/subrogation, lost wages, and other damages
- Prelitigation Demands
- Letters of representation, writing demand letters, legal basis for claims, and confidential settlement talks
- Litigation
- Preparing your client and filing the case/initial pleadings
- The Discovery Period
- When to send discovery and subpoenas, standard questions versus special questions (interrogatories), preparing for depositions, and utilizing experts
- Summary Judgment
- Trial
- Preparing your client, preparing your team, and what to expect in court (federal vs. state)
- Settlement
- General understanding, releases, accounting, and closing the case without loose ends
