Why You Can Afford To Hire One of the Best Lawyers

An alarming number of people who are the victims of doctor malpractice, hospital malpractice or medical malpractice do nothing about seeking compensation for their injuries and damages, many of whom suffer quite significant injuries that are of a permanent nature.
Perhaps one of the main reasons that these people do nothing about pursuing the responsible party is because they realize that these cases are very costly to develop and they have little or no money, so they feel that they cannot go after a doctor or hospital that has far greater resources.
Medical malpractice cases are handled by lawyers on a contingency fee basis which means that the attorney or law firm retains a percentage of the monetary award through a settlement or after a trial. If there is no recovery then the client owes the lawyer nothing for a fee.
Still other people may think that medical malpractice cases are very expensive to develop and they do not have money to pay all of the experts that will be needed to properly present their case. Most, if not all, experienced medical malpractice attorneys will advance all of your costs. A large percentage of these lawyers, assuming the rules of that particular state allow for it, will agree not to seek reimbursement of those costs if there is no recover, especially when you have a very good case with a potential for a large recovery.
If you or someone you know has been injured through doctor malpractice, hospital malpractice or medical malpractice you should contact an experienced malpractice attorney immediately.
Attorney Richard Hastings, for the past two and one half decades, has been helping injured clients and families collect millions of dollars in losses ranging from motor vehicle accidents to wrongful death, to medical malpractice. He is the founder of Selectcounsel, LLC, a free service that helps you find one of the best lawyers in your area and is the author of the books "How To Find A Great Lawyer" and "Understanding And Improving The Value Of Your Personal Injury Case." Please visit http://www.SelectCounsel.com to see how they can find you one of the best lawyers in your area for your serious injury or medical malpractice case.

Do I Have A Medical Malpractice Case Involving A Birth Injury?

Birth injuries can be caused by doctor malpractice or hospital malpractice in a number of different ways which could include:
* Excessive force used in the delivery of the baby including the use of forceps;
* A delay in the performance of a necessary C-section;
* Failing to recognize on a timely basis that the baby is in distress;
* Depriving the baby of oxygen during the delivery;
* Failure to order specific tests during pregnancy and/or not properly interpreting tests; or
* Lack of oxygen to the brain or trauma to the head during labor and delivery.


Because the types and degrees of birthing problems are so varied, the complications associated with these injuries can be quite different. The problems associated with birth mistakes could include:
* Mental and physical developmental problems having lifetime implications;
* Brain damage;
* Respiratory Problems;
* Cerebral Palsy which is a brain disorder that can cause problems affecting a person's ability to control muscles, walk, use one's arms and legs and may result in seizures and decreased mental abilities; or
* Erb's Palsy which is an injury resulting in the compression of a person's brachial plexus nerves that control various arm functions. Often times a person who has Erb's palsy can develop arm length retardation as they grow.


If you suspect that your child has suffered an injury as a result of hospital, doctor or medical malpractice, it is extremely important that you contact an experienced malpractice attorney who has expertise in the handling and presentation of birth cases.
An attorney should be contacted immediately if one suspects that the birth injuries were caused by medical negligence.



You will also need the opinions of medical experts to help develop your case. Your attorney will be able to suggest a team of experts that can range from private investigators to doctors to economists to help develop your case.


In most cases, the law firm or attorneys will advance all costs and expenses of the case as they are incurred. Once the case is concluded, they would be reimbursed for their costs out of the recovery. In some states, even if there is no recovery, the client is still responsible for the costs and expenses of the case even though the client owes no legal fees. In other states, if there is no recovery, the client will owe nothing for the costs and expenses, which will be absorbed by the law firm or attorney.

SelectCounsel, LLC can refer you to one of the best law firms in your area and arrange for a free consultation for you to speak with one of those lawyers.


Attorney Richard Hastings, for the past two and one half decades, has been helping injured clients and families collect millions of dollars in cases ranging from motor vehicle accidents to wrongful death, to medical malpractice. He is the founder of Selectcounsel, LLC, a free service that helps you find one of the best lawyers in your area and is the author of the books "How To Find A Great Lawyer" and "Understanding And Improving The Value Of Your Personal Injury Case."

Emergency Room Misdiagnosis and Medical Malpractice

Pressure on your chest, chest pain, shortness of breath, numbness in your left arm and difficulty talking are all classic signs of a heart attack. Few people would need a medical degree to come up with this diagnosis but amazingly people who visit hospital emergency rooms with these complaints are sometimes sent home only to encounter a disastrous result. Even more distressing is the fact that some people who present themselves to a hospital with these complaints are given diagnostic tests which reveal problems and still they are sometimes sent home. A Heart attack is one of the top conditions that are the subject of medical malpractice awards. Doctors sometimes misdiagnose this condition as heartburn, reflux, GERD or some other type of gastrointestinal situation. Emergency room malpractice awards are generally the result of misdiagnosis or for mismanaged diagnostic testing. Because the adverse consequences of the misdiagnosis of a heart attack and its care are so great the awards for these types of doctor malpractice cases can be quite high. If you suffered a heart attack which was either misdiagnosed or mismanaged then you need to speak with an experienced medical malpractice lawyer immediately. Attorney Richard Hastings, for the past two and one half decades, has been helping injured clients and families collect millions of dollars in losses ranging from motor vehicle accidents to wrongful death, to medical malpractice. He is the founder of Selectcounsel, LLC, a free service that helps you find one of the best lawyers in your area and is the author of the books "How To Find A Great Lawyer" and "Understanding And Improving The Value Of Your Personal Injury Case." Please visit http://www.SelectCounsel.com to see how they can find you one of the best lawyers in your area for your serious injury or medical malpractice case. Selectcounsel, LLC is a FREE national service that helps people with serious personal injury and medical malpractice cases find one of the best lawyers in their area to represent them. The lawyers we recommend are independently rated by attorneys and judges as being among the very best in their field of practice. Visit us at http://selectcounsel.com/ to see how we can help you find one of the best lawyers for your case.

How To Reduce The Chance of Becoming a Victim of Medical Malpractice

If you want to reduce the chance of becoming a medical malpractice victim then you should investigate your doctor prior to having any type of risky or invasive surgical procedure performed. According to a 2006 report by the National Practioner Data Bank (NPDB) of the 164,877 physicians with some type of a report, 134,663 (81.7%) had only a medical error payment report while 9,898 (6.0%) had only State Licensure Action Reports, while 2,818 (1.7%) had only clinical privileges active reports and 1,391 (.8%) had only Medicare/Medicaid exclusion reports. The data furnished to NPDB indicates as a doctor's number of medical malpractice payment reports increases, there is a corresponding likelihood that the physician's adverse action reports also increases. The interesting statistic to note is the fact that doctors with at least two medical malpractice payment reports were responsible for the majority of malpractice payments. Approximately 33.29% of the 146,309 doctors that had malpractice payment reports had 2 or more such reports. These 48,566 doctors had a total of 138,199 malpractice error payment reports which account for 58.6% of all physician reports for payments for medical malpractice cases. It is therefore extremely important that you determine that your doctor does not have multiple malpractice settlements or verdicts or other adverse reports so you can cut down on your chances of becoming a victim of medical malpractice.
Attorney Richard Hastings, for the past two and one half decades, has been helping injured clients and families collect millions of dollars in losses ranging from motor vehicle accidents to wrongful death, to medical malpractice. He is the founder of Selectcounsel, LLC, a free service that helps you find one of the best lawyers in your area and is the author of the books "How To Find A Great Lawyer" and "Understanding And Improving The Value Of Your Personal Injury Case." Please visit http://www.SelectCounsel.com to see how they can find you one of the best lawyers in your area for your serious injury or medical malpractice case.

What You Need To Know Before Starting A Medical Malpractice Lawsuit

The statute of limitations is the time period specified by law within which your medical malpractice action must be filed. If you do not file within the applicable statute of limitations period, your claim could be subject to dismissal, preventing you from pursuing the claim regardless of the merits of the case.

Statute of limitations dates vary from state to state. Some states provide that the action be filed within the applicable time period from the date of the injury, while other states allow for a tolling, or extension, of the filing period from the date of discovery of the injury.

Under certain circumstances, if the claimant is incompetent or is a minor, some states allow for a tolling of the statute of limitations until the claimant becomes competent or reaches their majority.

There are also certain notice provisions that have very short limitation periods, especially those that relate to local, state, or federal governmental entities. In certain circumstances, if you do not comply with the statutory notice provisions, you may lose the right to file your lawsuit, even if you act within the applicable statute of limitations period.

The statute of limitations in any particular case may be somewhat difficult to calculate, because a claim may involve different causes of action against different defendants. Once you miscalculate when the statute has run or fail to properly provide statutory notice, your claim may be forever barred despite its validity or the extent of your damages.

The doctrine of joint and several liability holds that a number of defendants who engaged in separate and independent acts of negligence that combined to cause a single injury are held to be jointly and severally liable. In other words, if one party was 1 percent at fault and the other parties were 99 percent at fault, the party who was 1 percent at fault could be held responsible for 100 percent of the damages suffered by the injured party.

The law of joint and several liability varies from state to state, and a number of states have somewhat complicated variations or modifications of this rule.

Vicarious liability concerns the ability to hold institutions or companies liable for the acts of their nonemployee affiliated personnel. For example, in some states, a hospital may be liable for the negligence of a physician acknowledged to be an independent contractor, while in other states, hospitals may not be liable for the acts of non-employee members of the medical staff.

In certain states, a plaintiff in a medical malpractice suit must file a certificate of good faith, or a similar document, that states that a medical expert has reviewed the file and has determined that there is a good-faith basis for a malpractice claim.

Medical errors happen. Your best defense against a medical error is taking a pro-active stance in your healthcare. If you suspect that you are the victim of prescription medication malpractice you should contact a qualified medical malpractice lawyer immediately for advice.

Please visit http://www.SelectCounsel.com to see how they can find you one of the best lawyers in your area for your serious injury or medical malpractice case

Medication Errors and Medical Malpractice

Over a million people a year in the US are harmed by medication errors. A medication error can be defined as any preventable event that may cause or lead to improper medication usage and patient harm while under the care and/or supervision of a health care professional.
Prescription errors can be the result of improper order communications, improper product labeling or instructions, compounding, dependency, prescribing, administration, monitoring or use.
In a study performed by the FDA involving fatal medication errors from 1993 to 1998, the most common error was related to the administration of an improper dosage of medicine which accounted for 41% of all fatal medication negligence. The administration of the wrong drugs and using the wrong means of administration each accounted for another 16% of the fatalities. Almost one half of the cases involving medically negligent situations occur in people over the age of 60. The reasoning behind the higher percentage of 60 and over deaths is due to the multiple medications that are often taken by this demographic.
When you are prescribed a medication, have all issues and information described to you: the name of the drug; any generic equivalents; the dosage; what it is used for; any side effects; literature you can review; and what are the potential adverse reactions with the dosage you are currently taking. Make sure you understand, how and when to take the medication, the dosage, storage requirements and any special instructions.
By becoming actively involved in your health care you can help to minimize the incidents of medical malpractice and you can help to avoid becoming a victim of medical negligence.

Attorney Richard Hastings, for the past two and one half decades, has been helping injured clients and families collect millions of dollars in cases ranging from motor vehicle accidents to wrongful death, to medical malpractice. He is the founder of Selectcounsel, LLC, a free service that helps you find one of the best lawyers in your area and is the author of the books "How To Find A Great Lawyer" and "Understanding And Improving The Value Of Your Personal Injury Case."

Do I Have A Wrongful Death Case?

The causes for a case resulting in a death claim are potentially unlimited, but there are four major categories which have the highest probabilities.
Motor Vehicle Accidents
In 2007, 41,059 people died in motor vehicle accidents in the United States. While there are no statistics available as to how many of these were due to the negligence of a third party, the likelihood of wrongful death is highest in this category given the sheer number of fatalities.
Common causes of fatalities in motor vehicle accidents that result in lawsuits include speeding, reckless driving, driving while under the influence, vehicle equipment malfunction and driver inexperience.
Medical Malpractice
Medical malpractice occurs when a physician does not provide medical care to an expected standard of competence or dispenses medical treatment that a competent doctor would not have given. This may also be applicable to health care providers, such as nurses.
Preventable medical errors take the lives of approximately 98,000 Americans per year. That equates to 285 deaths every day.
Medical malpractice runs the gauntlet from prescription mistakes to failure to diagnose or misdiagnosis to negligent maternity care, with an alarming number of causes in between.
Workplace Accidents
In 2007, a total of 5,888 people died as a result of accidents in the workplace.
The number one cause of these types of cases was motor vehicle accidents and represents approximately one-quarter of the workplace fatalities.
In 2007, 835 workers died in falls, whether from non-moving vehicles, on the same level, into holes or from roofs, to place this form of workplace accident in second position.
Other workplace accidents noted in the Department of Labor's statistics were caused by: falling objects; electrocution; homicides; railway incidents; aircraft incidents; struck by mobile equipment; fires and explosions.
Ninety percent of workplace fatalities occur in the private sector, primarily in the service providing and goods producing industries.
Product Liability
One out of every 125 men who dies over 50 years old is a victim of asbestos-caused diseases. It can take from 10 to 40 years for diseases caused by asbestos to develop.
Ten thousand deaths per year are attributable to asbestos, just under 3 per day.
Approximately 9,000 people die each year from food poisoning. Deliberate product tampering or unsafe manufacturing practices which cause accidental contamination may be at fault.
Product cases can also stem from pharmaceuticals, unsafe packaging, failure to place warnings regarding the product on packaging, mechanical failures, improper or unsafe building construction and unsafe vehicle design.
The above information is not meant to be comprehensive but, rather, a general overview of common causes of wrongful death.
To receive specific legal advice pertinent to your circumstances, an experienced personal injury attorney should be consulted.
Attorney Richard Hastings, for the past two and one half decades, has been helping injured clients and families collect millions of dollars in losses ranging from motor vehicle accidents to wrongful death, to medical malpractice. He is the founder of Selectcounsel, LLC, a free service that helps you find one of the best lawyers in your area and is the author of the books "How To Find A Great Lawyer" and "Understanding And Improving The Value Of Your Personal Injury Case."
Please visit http://www.SelectCounsel.com to see how they can find you one of the best lawyers in your area for your serious injury or medical malpractice case.