Personal Injury Attorney Dallas Texas - An interview with James Craig Orr
Q. Tell us about yourself and your practice.
A. I am 43 years old and I have been a lawyer now for 18 years. I graduated from Baylor University, with my undergraduate degree and University of Michigan, with my law degree. I am married and have 3 children (ages 8, 6 and 3). The two oldest are our natural children and youngest is adopted. I enjoy going out to dinner and watching movies with my wife and we love spending lots of time with our kids. I am also a big sports fan and love to play basketball, which I do every Thursday night. I am the managing partner of my firm Heygood Orr & Pearson. We are a civil litigation firm of 6 lawyers. Our website is hop-law.com. Approximately 75% of our cases involve personal injury and 25% involve business disputes. We pride ourselves on being what we call “ real” trial attorneys, because we have a great deal of experience in taking cases all the way through a jury trial.
Q. Do you offer free initial consultations?
A. Yes. All of our initial consultations are free. If the matter involves a personal injury and we accept the case, then we generally proceed on a contingency fee basis (i.e. we are compensated with a % of the recovery).
Q. People have accidents every day. What separates a simple accident from one where a person should seek your firm’ s assistance?
A. Ultimately a jury decides, what is just and what is not. However, an example of something that likely would be considered by a jury as just an accident, would be something like a person slipping on water on a grocery store floor that just seeped from a refrigerator. But if the grocery store had reason to believe that this refrigerator was seeping water and failed to fix it, a jury might conclude that it was not an accident. Thus whether it is an accident is something that you should pursue with an attorney very much, as that depends on the facts involved. If someone failed to do something they should have done, or did something they should not have done and it resulted in an injury, then it is probably something on which you should consult an attorney.
Q.What kind of monetary compensation will one get from a personal injury settlement?
A. With personal injuries the law in most states allows for recovery of damages for medical bills, lost wages, mental anguish, pain/suffering and physical impairment. If the case goes to trial, the jury decides how much the injured party receives for these categories of damages. Settlement offers are usually based on a combination of an estimate of how much a jury would likely award and the cost of defending the matter.
Q. What is the process to file a personal injury lawsuit?
A. The first step in filing a personal injury lawsuit is the hiring of a well qualified personal injury attorney. Indicators of a well qualified personal injury attorney include, board certified AV rating by Martindale Hubbell and recommended by other attorneys, who handle personal injury cases. The next step is meeting with your attorney and providing him or her all of the relevant documentation and information. Next, the attorney will draft and file the lawsuit. The parties will then engage in what is called written discovery. This is where both sides submit written questions to each that must be answered under oath. The parties also exchange requests for documents relevant to the case. After written discovery numerous depositions are usually taken. Depositions are where parties to the lawsuit and witnesses to the subject incident are questioned under oath by the attorneys and a court reporter types everything that is said. The next stage of a case is the expert stage. Here both sides hire expert witnesses to testify about who is at fault for the accident and about the plaintiff'’s injuries. Once all of the above are completed the case is ready for a trial. A personal injury case can settle at any point during the litigation process.
Q. What if an individual is partly at fault for the accident?
A. In most states as long as you were not mostly at fault, you can still bring a personal injury case. However, your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault. For example if a jury awards a personal injury plaintiff $100, 000 for an injury, but finds that the plaintiff was 25% at fault for his or her own injur, then the recovery would be reduced by 25% from $100, 000 to $75, 000. In some states, if the plaintiff is at fault for their own injury in any regard (even 1%) then the plaintiff is barred from any recovery.
Q. How soon should one file a lawsuit?
A. The preferred timing of the filing of a personal injury lawsuit may be different in each case. For example in cases where the plaintiff’' s attorney is worried about destruction of evidence or the fading of witnesses’ memory he or she may want to file the case right away to secure and document all the relevant evidence through written discovery and depositions. In some situations the at fault party may be clear and the only question may be the extent of the damages. If a person is still recovering from their injury or may have future procedures to treat their injury the plaintiff’' s attorney may decide to wait a short period of time before filing the case, in order to allow time for the exact nature and severity of the injuries to become clear.
Q. What damages can one recover?
A. In most states the only damages that are recoverable are money damages. The jury decides the amount of money damages to be paid to the injured party. However, in some instances the judge can reduce the amount of damages awarded by a jury. As mentioned above, the law in most states allows for recovery of damages for medical bills, lost wages, mental anguish, pain/suffering and physical impairment. If a person is married or has children, the spouse and/or children may be able to recover damages for loss of consortium ,if the injury to their spouse or parent is severe enough to impact their relationship with him or her.
