Q. Tell us about yourself and your practice.
A. I have been practicing law in San Diego for over thirty years, the last nineteen as a sole practitioner. I have been married for twenty-eight years and have four children. I tend to represent individuals with injuries or employment issues. Many of my clients are either working mothers or stay at home moms.
Q. What are the main areas of law you focus on?
A. Employment law, personal injury, maritime law and general civil litigation.
Q. How key is evidence in a court case?
A. Solild evidence is crucial to winning a case.
Q. Do most cases go to trial to recover damages?
A. No. Perhaps 5% of cases that are filed go to trial, although it may be a higher percentage for injury cases these days, because of insurance companies delaying and denying tactics.
Q. Who is responsible when a person is injured?
A. The at fault party.
Q. What if an individual is partly at fault for the accident?
A. The injured party can share in a percentage of the fault and have his or her damages reduced by that percentage.
Q. What is the difference between negligence and accidents?
A. An accident is an injury or damage producing event that was not caused intentionally. Negligence means that someone involved in causing the accident failed to act with reasonable care to prevent the accident.
Q. How is the worth of a claim determined?
A. An injured party can be compensated for all out of pocket losses caused by the accident, such as medical expenses, loss of income or income capacity, property damages and other lost or damaged items. These are known as economic damages.
The value is usually self-evident from a bill, pay stub etc. An injured party may also recover for non-economic damages such as loss of enjoyment of life, inconvenience, pain, suffering and for any way that one's life has been affected to a negative degree by an accident or injury. No set value can be assigned to non-economic loss.
Q. Do you offer free consultation?
A. I give free consultations for the purpose of meeting with a potential client and listening to his or her story or concern, for the purpose of determining whether I can offer to represent a person. |
