Hiring a Cerebral Palsy Attorney
If your child has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy caused by a birth injury, you likely feel overwhelmed and concerned about their future. Cerebral palsy can permanently affect your child’s life and have a substantial impact on your family’s financial well-being. Fortunately, Pennsylvania law allows victims and their families to pursue compensation against the negligent medical providers who caused their injuries, including brain damage resulting in cerebral palsy. Infant injury law firms like Raynes & Lawn represent the families of children with cerebral palsy and work to hold the negligent medical providers who caused their medical conditions and injuries accountable. Hiring a cerebral palsy attorney in Philadelphia might help to protect the rights of your child and your family.
Why Hire a Cerebral Palsy Lawyer?
If your child’s cerebral palsy was caused by a provider’s medical mistakes, you should consider retaining a Philadelphia birth injury lawyer. Children affected by cerebral palsy frequently need extensive, ongoing care. Your medical bills can quickly mount as you try to provide your child with the treatment and therapy they need. When you retain a cerebral palsy lawyer, your attorney can offer the following help:
- Determining liability
- Meeting all deadlines
- Handling all paperwork
- Communicating with the insurance companies
- Sending demand letters
- Investigating your case
- Consulting medical experts
- Obtaining and reviewing medical records
- Negotiating a maximal settlement
- Recovering lifetime benefits
Insurance companies and hospitals typically dispute liability or offer unreasonably low offers to malpractice victims and their families. An experienced birth injury attorney will know the typical strategies insurance companies and hospitals use to try to dispute liability and help you build the strongest possible case to recover all of the damages you deserve.
Understanding Lifetime Benefits
When a medical provider violates the expected standard of care and causes a brain injury, cerebral palsy can develop. An attorney will work with a medical expert to complete a medical-legal review and explain the merits of your case and your options. If the medical records demonstrate the provider’s negligence and show that your child’s cerebral palsy was preventable, your lawyer will likely agree to accept representation.
By filing a lawsuit, you might be able to recover compensation for all of your losses and those of your child, including lifetime benefits.
Lifetime benefits are damages that can be placed in a trust dedicated to helping your child with the challenges of cerebral palsy. These damages are meant to address the gaps faced by your child and reduce them. Some of the types of damages your child might receive in a trust include the following:
- Medical expenses
- Physical therapy expenses
- Speech therapy expenses
- Occupational therapy expenses
- Cost of adaptive equipment and assistive technology
- Housing assistance
- Education expenses
- Home modifications
- Adaptive vehicles
Receiving compensation on behalf of your child for these and other expenses that they will likely incur can help to give you peace of mind that your child’s needs will be taken care of throughout their life.
You might also recover compensation for your family’s economic and non-economic losses, including the additional expenses you will have because of your child’s condition, the cost of home modifications to your home, pain and suffering damages for your child, grief, disability, and others.
Characteristics of a Good Cerebral Palsy Lawyer
If you are searching for a cerebral palsy attorney, you should look for a lawyer with some key characteristics. While there are many attorneys, not all of them are equipped to handle a medical malpractice cerebral palsy case. Even some medical malpractice firms are not able to handle birth injury cases, so you need to look for someone with the following traits.
1. Experience Handling Birth Injury Cases
When you search for an attorney, you need to look for infant injury law firms with attorneys who have substantial experience handling cerebral palsy cases. You don’t want to hire someone who has little or no experience handling these types of claims. When you will be taking on a malpractice insurer and its team of aggressive defense lawyers, you must have an experienced cerebral palsy attorney by your side to clearly show liability and potentially win your case.
2. Someone You Trust
The cerebral palsy attorney you choose should be someone you trust to handle your case and who you personally like. your attorney should genuinely care about your child and listen to your concerns. If you are comfortable with your lawyer, it will be easier to manage your case.
3. Open Lines of Communication
A good attorney should have open lines of communication and promptly return your calls. If you notice that a prospective attorney doesn’t answer or return your calls, it will likely only get worse if you retain them. Make sure you know how an attorney will handle communications and keep you informed about what is happening with your case.
Talk to Birth Injury Lawyers near Me
If you think your child’s cerebral palsy was caused by the medical negligence of a doctor or another healthcare provider, you should reach out to Raynes & Lawn. We have fought for the rights of families against negligent medical providers for more than five decades and can help you understand your case. Call us for a free case evaluation at 1-800-535-1797.
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