Personal Injury Forms: Discovery & Settlement

Description

Keep your cases moving forward. Establishing proven routines for processing your tort cases can boost your efficiency and your effectiveness. Tools for systematizing your caseload may be found in Ron Bankston and John Tarantino’s Personal Injury Forms: Discovery & Settlement.

Faster Settlements

This book and disc package offers time-tested forms and advice on how to use them. The first half of the book focuses on tools applicable to all types of personal injury litigation; the second half covers the following types of cases:

• Auto accidents
• Insurance bad faith
• Liquor liability
• Medical malpractice
• Police assault & battery
• Premises security
• Products liability
• Slip & fall
• Workers’ compensation
• And more

In personal injury litigation, mismanagement and inefficiency often plague the early phases of case development. Over 300 carefully selected forms, checklists, questionnaires, complaints, and memoranda will help you organize and economize your personal injury work. Improve the speed and effectiveness of your intake, investigation, pleading, discovery, and settlement with these practice-proven tools:

• Model interrogatories
• Deposition checklists
• Interview questionnaires
• Case evaluation checklists
• Client, witness and expert letters
• Sample complaints
• Memoranda
• Motions
• Settlement letters

The authors’ years of experience have yielded practical advice and techniques for overcoming common problems. Troublesome issues are analyzed with case authority, and case-specific liability hurdles are tackled. The following are just a few of the helpful tips you will learn from Personal Injury Forms:

• How to spot clients who are likely to be difficult … before they cause you problems. Section 115
• Understanding which cases not to accept. Section 116
• Discovery motions help you move around common obstacles. Section 753
• How to refute defense claims of malingering. Section 118
• Model client letters and attachments, like a “what to expect” letter with a special damages record, improve client communication and encourage client assistance. Section 133
• How to use the independent medical examination to the plaintiff’s advantage. Section 244
• How to deal with the subsequent treating physician. Section 245
• Detailed advice on justifying awards for non-economic losses. Section 252
• Tips for dealing with insurance adjusters, including common hurdles and how to get over them. Section 230

REVISION 15 HIGHLIGHTS

This year’s update to our popular collection of forms is once again loaded with new material.

NEW TEXT AND FORMS

Chapter 1 Initial Client Contact
Client Screening: Initial Telephone Interview, §110.1
Client Screening: Initial Telephone Interview (Short Form), §110.2
Client Information Packets, §111
Client Information Sheet/Questionnaire—Personal Injury (Non-Death) Case, §111.3
Client Information Sheet/Questionnaire Wrongful Death Case, §111.4
“What to Expect” Client Letter, §130

Chapter 5 Settlement
Mediation Documents, Forms and Agreements, §577.2
Sample Mediator’s Letter, §577.3
Rules for Mediation, §577.4
Agreement for Mediation, §577.5
Explanation of the Mediation Process to Clients, §577.6
Notifying the Client of the Scheduled Mediation, §577.7

Chapter 8 Products Liability and Toxic Tort Cases
Discovery Requests to Equipment Rental Company, §811.8
Equipment Rental Interrogatories to Defendant, §811.9
Equipment Rental Request For Production to Defendant, §831.2
Toxic Tort/Pharmaceutical Client Screening, §865.4
Toxic Tort (Toxic Exposure or Pharmaceutical): Client Questionnaire, §865.5
Toxic Tort: Drafting the Complaint, §866
Toxic Tort Sample Complaint (Alternative Form, Occupational Exposure—Product Liability), §866.2
Toxic Tort Sample Complaint (Alternative Form, Occupational Exposure—Premises Liability), §866.3
Toxic Tort Sample Interrogatories to Defendant (Alternative Form, Occupational Exposure), §871.1
Toxic Tort Sample Request for Production to Defendant (Occupational Exposure), §873.1

ABBREVIATED TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Initial Client Contact
2. Investigation and Evaluation
3. Experts
4. Discovery
5. Settlement
6. [Reserved]
7. Premises Liability
8. Products Liability and Toxic Tort Cases
9. Medical Malpractice
10. Police Assault and Battery
11. Automobile Accidents
12. Dram Shop/Liquor Liability
13. Insurance Bad Faith
14. Premises Security

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ronald G. Bankston is a partner in the Houston, Texas office of the litigation firm of Godwin Pappas Ronquillo, LLP, and has been a practicing trial lawyer for 30 years. Mr. Bankston is Board-Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He was first certified in 1985, and has been re-certified every five years since, most recently in 2005.

Mr. Bankston is admitted to practice by the State Bar of Texas and Supreme Court of Texas, the U.S. District Courts for Southern and Eastern Districts of Texas, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Court of Claims in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA), a Life Fellow in the Texas and Houston Bar Foundations, a Sustaining Member of American Association for Justice and Texas Trial Lawyers’ Association, a Member and Past Director of Houston Trial Lawyers’ Association, and a Member of the Attorney-
Mediators Institute and the Association of Attorney-Mediators.

In addition to his private practice, Mr. Bankston has also served as Special Assistant Disciplinary Counsel for the Texas Commission on Lawyer Discipline. He is also Academic Advisor and Lead Instructor at Rice University in the Rice University Paralegal Certificate Program.

A veteran as lead counsel in more than 100 jury trials, Mr. Bankston has spent his adult life counseling and representing individuals, families, small businesses, professionals, corporations and governmental entities. As a trained mediator, Mr. Bankston is often selected as a mediator by opposing parties and their attorneys, and he receives frequent appointments as a mediator by District Judges in Houston. He has provided mediation services to a wide variety of parties and attorneys, and his experienced “voice of reason” and patient persistence has facilitated the resolution of many especially difficult, complex disputes.

Mr. Bankston has served and been recognized as a Distinguished Faculty Member for the Houston Bar Association Continuing Legal Education Program, and a Guest Lecturer and Instructor in Trial Advocacy at the University of Houston Law Center. Mr. Bankston has also been an invited Lecturer on Personal Injury, Mediation, Product Liability, Premises Liability, Construction Liability, Water Park and Aquatic Safety Liability and Rental Equipment Liability.

Featured in Who’s Who in American Law, Mr. Bankston is also AV-rated by the national Martindale-Hubbell Legal Rating System, the highest rating for legal ability and ethical conduct, and has also been recognized nationally by Martindale-Hubbell as a Preeminent Attorney in the fields of Personal Injury, Product Liability and Toxic Tort.

John A. Tarantino is a trial attorney and principal in the law firm of Adler Pollock & Sheehan P.C. with offices in Providence, Rhode Island and Boston, Massachusetts. He has served as Chair of the firm’s Litigation and Executive Committees and presently holds the office of President. Mr. Tarantino lectures frequently on trial techniques in national, state and local bar and trial lawyer associations, from both the plaintiff and the defense perspective, and is the author of several legal texts including Litigating Neck & Back Injuries, Trial Evidence Foundations, Commercial Premises Liability, Premises Security: Law & Practice, Strategic Use of Scientific Evidence, Personal Injury Trial Handbook, Estimating & Proving Personal Injury Damages and Environmental Liability Transaction Guide. He has authored over 200 articles, columns, essays and reviews on discovery, procedure, trial strategy, product liability, liquor liability, premises security, forensic evidence, commercial law, criminal law, legal ethics, professionalism, environmental law and insurance coverage.

Mr. Tarantino is a member of the United States Supreme Court, Rhode Island and Massachusetts bars, the ABA, ATLA (Defense Member), DRI, American Judicature Society, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the American Inns of Court (holding the rank of Barrister), the American Law Institute, the Defense Counsel of Rhode Island, the National Italian-American Law Society, the Justinian Society and the St. Thomas More Society. He is also a member of the Trial Practice and Litigation Sections of the ABA, serves on the ABA’s Subcommittee on Organizational Sentencing Guidelines and has served as Vice Chair of the ABA Committee on Scientific Evidence.

From 1984 through 1993, Mr. Tarantino served as Chair of the Public Relations Committee for the Rhode Island Bar Association. From 1997 through 1998, during the Rhode Island Bar Association’s Centennial Year, he served as President of the Rhode Island Bar and previously served as that Association’s President-Elect, Vice President and Treasurer. He is also a former Chair of the Rhode Island Bar Association’s Ethics and Professionalism Committee, has served as Chair of the Bar Association’s Ad Hoc Committee on Lawyer Advertising, and served as Co-Chair of the Committee on Judicial Independence. He continues to serve in the Rhode Island Bar Association’s House of Delegates. He served as President of the New England Bar Association from 2002 through 2003, and served as President of the Defense Counsel of Rhode Island from 2003 through 2004. He is a member of the National Conference of Bar Presidents.

Mr. Tarantino was named “Lawyer of the Year” for 2002 by Lawyers Weekly USA, one of the ten lawyers in the United States to receive this honor and recognition. He is also recognized in Best Lawyers of America in the fields of personal injury litigation, as well as commercial and business litigation; and he is recognized in Chambers USA America’s Leading Business Lawyers in the field of litigation. Additionally, his peers have honored him, selecting him as one of the “Best Lawyers in Rhode Island” in the field of litigation. He is a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and a Fellow of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers.