One of the more recent automobile accident type cases I had, unfortunately, involved a fatality. A young man crossing the street was struck and killed. The family was devastated. It took quite some time to get the estate work done. There were witnesses that didn’t want to cooperate, didn’t want to come forward. Uh, it took a lot of time.
It took a lot of searching to locate them outside the state of New York and finally were able to come forward with a witness who said, “Yeah, no, I understand. I saw that accident. It was horrific and that car really was speeding. That car really was out of control.” And what had been, you know, months, and I’m sure to this family seemed like years, not thinking there would ever be an ending in sight.
Uh, by finally being able to track down and get that witness and get a little bit of cooperation, which we would never yield and never stop, you know, working to get, even if we had to subpoena them at some point. And as soon as we had that cooperation, I was very happy to be able to tell the family the insurance company was tendering the full policy to them.
They’ll never bring back a loved one, uh, but it would give them whatever piece we could give them and give them some conclusion to the case.
So, automobile cases sometimes can be simpler, for lack of a better word, and resolved quickly, and sometimes they really are horrific and take much, much more work. Uh, and that’s one that I’ve just been dealing with recently to just resolve.
So, that comes to mind, but it just brings me back to what I was saying earlier. Uh, communication important.
The other thing that’s very important is preparation. Nothing, nothing more important than those two things. You need to be prepared at every step of the case, from day one when you meet with a client right up until the day you walk into a courtroom and get ready for trial.
You don’t have to be the smartest lawyer in the room, but you have to be the most prepared lawyer in the room. And that’s something we take very seriously here.