Ep 67: Submitting a Demand for Catastrophic Injury Cases

Welcome to the catastrophic comeback podcast with American Injury Lawyer Clark speaks, helping you find hope, purpose and joy after a catastrophic injury. Hi. Welcome to another episode of catastrophic comeback. I'm excited today to have my guest, Jeff Watson, managing attorney for speaks law firm, and then Cooper Watson, who is a demand writer in our law firm. And welcome guys. I appreciate you being here.

Thanks for having us. Thanks

for having Cooper. Let's start with you and Jeff, jump in where you feel like it's important. Today we're talking about demands and and in a personal injury context. And first of all, what is a demand?

So a demand is kind of the it's the first impression. It's the first kind of package, formally, that gets sent to an adjuster. Comes in the form of a letter, normally, which I write. It's a summary, but it's a detailed summary, and it's a custom summary for each client, going through accident reports, medical files, lost wages, all those sorts of things, and pulling out the the key damages and the key information, and kind of forming that together together in a typically about a two page letter that then gets sent off to an insurance adjuster who's going to try to pick it apart, of course, because that's their job, but that's why it's really important that we get the key details in there from the start and get that sent to them early.

And so the demand the letter is a part of the package. What else goes into the package of information that's sent to an adjuster.

Well, case adjusters and attorney, or case managers and attorneys, do a great job of putting together, sometimes hundreds of pages of material, and it depends on the type of case, of course, if it's a car accident, which the majority are, there's going to be an accident report. There are going to be medical files, which are, you know, complicated and and take some time to go through, but we do go through them, every page of them, which are hundreds of pages, sometimes, but pull out the key information there and then information on lost wages, generally, is also attached. So

the way I look at it is the demand is a letter and the corresponding documentation that shows an insurance company why you owe money, so to include the legal theory and the relevant facts and how much money you owe our client, which would include medical bills, medical records, calculations as To lost wages, permanent impairment, those kinds of things. Jeff, what am I leaving out? What else is important about a demand, and why is the demand and a custom demand that you guys reference? Why is that so important in this in this context?

Well, typically in there, you have photographs of cars that are damaged. You can have photographs of injuries because, you know, pictures worth 1000 words, right? And we're trying to prepare these cases, ultimately, in case they have to go to trial, and most cases are able to be resolved, because we do a lot of work on the front end to cause that to happen. But, you know, we want to prepare the cases like they're going to trial. So we want to have those photographs, they're really important, of the vehicles and the injuries. Also in there, we might have expert opinions from doctors. There might be different experts that we use to cost out future medical care, or economist reports on on different lost revenues and wages and things that the clients have experienced, things that are not easy for clients or us to to document. We have experts that can do that and build the value of these cases and really reflect what the clients have gone through.

We've talked in some other contexts, about other experts that we might use, whether it's a engineer, an accident reconstructionist, future medical analysis, calculation, those types of things, where do they fit into this process?

Well, I mean, once the client's done treating or they've gotten as good as they're going to get, hopefully they're, well, that's the goal of all this. But then, you know, we're collecting medical bills, we're collecting medical records, we're collecting police reports and all the evidence, and we're typically then sending that. Off to Cooper to review all of that stuff and write a demand letter with his experience writing a custom demand letter for each client. And so in that process, an attorney is reviewing all of that evidence and seeing areas where we could get an expert to build up this area of damages, or better document this area of damages, and that's when we pull those experts in, kind of at the end of that process, to help fully explain what the client's gone through and build up the value of the case. Sometimes we'll send a demand to an adjuster and tell them, hey, we've got more coming, and then the expert reports will come, because sometimes it takes a little bit of time to do that, but it's well worth it for the client, because it, you know, we we've taken, you know, cases that were 20,000 our cases, and made 100,000 our cases, 100,000 our cases, and made a million dollar cases. Now that's not always the case, but it is in a lot of cases that we're able to do that because we've got a lot of experience. We've seen this done, and we know how to build these things for trial. And, you know, get the information to an adjuster. That's persuasive.

When you say, make a $20,000 case, $100,000 case, $100,000 case, a million dollar case. I want to talk about that for just a moment, because if I'm watching this for the first time, and I haven't seen some of the other explanations of what's going on, you know, I might think, okay, that, how can you do that? That's some kind of magic or some kind of hocus pocus. And so tell me, what do you mean when you say those things?

Well, you know, we're not making stuff up. That's like, we just don't do that. That's not the way we do do our job. What we're trying to do is, is, is talk to our clients and find out exactly what they've been through. And, you know, I've worked in Law Offices before where that wasn't the case. You really didn't get a lot of the information. There wasn't a lot of client lot of client communication. They didn't have somebody walking with them through the treatment process and understanding that they missed their kids graduation and they couldn't go to the beach, or they bought it. They bought an RV to go spend time with their grandkids on the road, and now they can't even drive the RV anymore. And all of those details, we're trying to pull those out and document those so the adjuster sees what a jury is going to see and the extent of damages. So to the extent we can't just point those things out, that Cooper can't point those things out in the demand letter, we're trying to get experts that can document those things where it's admissible in court to come in and say, Okay, well, you didn't just lose, you know, $10,000 of wages from your employer. You also had to pay somebody to clean your house, and you couldn't cut the grass anymore. And you can get, you know, you can, you can do your own hair. So you think you have somebody go get your hair done, and 1000 other things that where you just couldn't do certain household services and things that you would normally do, carry groceries, take care of the kids, whatever. I remember talking to one photographer who was starting a business, and they had to pay people to help carry their equipment around, and because they could have carried it themselves, and now they're paying two other people to carry equipment around. Those are expenses that are easily skipped over that we're trying to pull all those details out, and by the time our experts are done and we've actually documented what the real damages are, it's no longer a $20,000 case. Now it's $100,000 case because we've actually pulled all of those damages out and documented them with people that can get them admissible in court.

So one of the things we've done here recently is we've talked to some former insurance adjusters, former insurance defense lawyers, and the way they describe it is insurance companies, or some insurance companies are not in the business of just withholding and denying claims. What their their approach is, they want to pay claims, or they will pay claims. They may not want to, but they will pay claims that are properly documented. So then this comprehensive documentation becomes the key is the extra effort of going and finding all these details, these details that you mentioned and that you and that you write about, that can make the difference in terms of value. Is that fair? Absolutely. So let me ask you this. And Jeff, you may be better to suited to describe this, but Cooper, jump in where you see fit the the demand. So we've talked about the demand, and if we're if we look at demand as the first impression, like you described, and the first opportunity to forecast to an insurance company, this is what we're going to show at trial. Either resolve this case with us through settlement, or we're going to show this to a jury. And we're going to ask for this much money now, so that's what the demand is. And so if we understand what the demand is, if somebody's what, if somebody's watching this, and that, the question that I would have is, where does this fit into the chronology of an injury case?

Well, you know people, when they come to us and they ask us to be their lawyers, you know we're we're immediately putting an investigator on the case. We're doing an investigation. We've got an intake team of former law enforcement, people that and investigators that know how to get those details and document what happened in the incident. We've got a case manager, a paralegal and attorneys that are walking through the clients or walking with the clients through the medical treatment phase. You know, the ultimate goal of all of this. Goal number one is get the clients as well as they can give them the best care we can, the best medical management we can. And and so, you know, we're trying to help them with, you know, making sure they're seeing the right kind of doctors for the right kind of injuries. And once they've treated and they've gotten well, and we've been able to accumulate all this evidence that we're going to send to Cooper to write about, that's when, that's when we we put all that evidence together and we send it to Cooper to write that custom demand letter for that particular case. Thank you

for joining us, and we'll see you next time you.

Welcome to the catastrophic comeback podcast with American Injury Lawyer Clark speaks, helping you find hope, purpose and joy after a catastrophic injury. Hi. Welcome to another episode of catastrophic comeback. I'm excited today to have my guest, Jeff Watson, managing attorney for speaks law firm, and then Cooper Watson, who is a demand writer in our law firm. And welcome guys. I appreciate you being here.

Thanks for having us. Thanks

for having Cooper. Let's start with you and Jeff, jump in where you feel like it's important. Today we're talking about demands and and in a personal injury context. And first of all, what is a demand?

So a demand is kind of the it's the first impression. It's the first kind of package, formally, that gets sent to an adjuster. Comes in the form of a letter, normally, which I write. It's a summary, but it's a detailed summary, and it's a custom summary for each client, going through accident reports, medical files, lost wages, all those sorts of things, and pulling out the the key damages and the key information, and kind of forming that together together in a typically about a two page letter that then gets sent off to an insurance adjuster who's going to try to pick it apart, of course, because that's their job, but that's why it's really important that we get the key details in there from the start and get that sent to them early.

And so the demand the letter is a part of the package. What else goes into the package of information that's sent to an adjuster.

Well, case adjusters and attorney, or case managers and attorneys, do a great job of putting together, sometimes hundreds of pages of material, and it depends on the type of case, of course, if it's a car accident, which the majority are, there's going to be an accident report. There are going to be medical files, which are, you know, complicated and and take some time to go through, but we do go through them, every page of them, which are hundreds of pages, sometimes, but pull out the key information there and then information on lost wages, generally, is also attached. So

the way I look at it is the demand is a letter and the corresponding documentation that shows an insurance company why you owe money, so to include the legal theory and the relevant facts and how much money you owe our client, which would include medical bills, medical records, calculations as To lost wages, permanent impairment, those kinds of things. Jeff, what am I leaving out? What else is important about a demand, and why is the demand and a custom demand that you guys reference? Why is that so important in this in this context?

Well, typically in there, you have photographs of cars that are damaged. You can have photographs of injuries because, you know, pictures worth 1000 words, right? And we're trying to prepare these cases, ultimately, in case they have to go to trial, and most cases are able to be resolved, because we do a lot of work on the front end to cause that to happen. But, you know, we want to prepare the cases like they're going to trial. So we want to have those photographs, they're really important, of the vehicles and the injuries. Also in there, we might have expert opinions from doctors. There might be different experts that we use to cost out future medical care, or economist reports on on different lost revenues and wages and things that the clients have experienced, things that are not easy for clients or us to to document. We have experts that can do that and build the value of these cases and really reflect what the clients have gone through.

We've talked in some other contexts, about other experts that we might use, whether it's a engineer, an accident reconstructionist, future medical analysis, calculation, those types of things, where do they fit into this process?

Well, I mean, once the client's done treating or they've gotten as good as they're going to get, hopefully they're, well, that's the goal of all this. But then, you know, we're collecting medical bills, we're collecting medical records, we're collecting police reports and all the evidence, and we're typically then sending that. Off to Cooper to review all of that stuff and write a demand letter with his experience writing a custom demand letter for each client. And so in that process, an attorney is reviewing all of that evidence and seeing areas where we could get an expert to build up this area of damages, or better document this area of damages, and that's when we pull those experts in, kind of at the end of that process, to help fully explain what the client's gone through and build up the value of the case. Sometimes we'll send a demand to an adjuster and tell them, hey, we've got more coming, and then the expert reports will come, because sometimes it takes a little bit of time to do that, but it's well worth it for the client, because it, you know, we we've taken, you know, cases that were 20,000 our cases, and made 100,000 our cases, 100,000 our cases, and made a million dollar cases. Now that's not always the case, but it is in a lot of cases that we're able to do that because we've got a lot of experience. We've seen this done, and we know how to build these things for trial. And, you know, get the information to an adjuster. That's persuasive.

When you say, make a $20,000 case, $100,000 case, $100,000 case, a million dollar case. I want to talk about that for just a moment, because if I'm watching this for the first time, and I haven't seen some of the other explanations of what's going on, you know, I might think, okay, that, how can you do that? That's some kind of magic or some kind of hocus pocus. And so tell me, what do you mean when you say those things?

Well, you know, we're not making stuff up. That's like, we just don't do that. That's not the way we do do our job. What we're trying to do is, is, is talk to our clients and find out exactly what they've been through. And, you know, I've worked in Law Offices before where that wasn't the case. You really didn't get a lot of the information. There wasn't a lot of client lot of client communication. They didn't have somebody walking with them through the treatment process and understanding that they missed their kids graduation and they couldn't go to the beach, or they bought it. They bought an RV to go spend time with their grandkids on the road, and now they can't even drive the RV anymore. And all of those details, we're trying to pull those out and document those so the adjuster sees what a jury is going to see and the extent of damages. So to the extent we can't just point those things out, that Cooper can't point those things out in the demand letter, we're trying to get experts that can document those things where it's admissible in court to come in and say, Okay, well, you didn't just lose, you know, $10,000 of wages from your employer. You also had to pay somebody to clean your house, and you couldn't cut the grass anymore. And you can get, you know, you can, you can do your own hair. So you think you have somebody go get your hair done, and 1000 other things that where you just couldn't do certain household services and things that you would normally do, carry groceries, take care of the kids, whatever. I remember talking to one photographer who was starting a business, and they had to pay people to help carry their equipment around, and because they could have carried it themselves, and now they're paying two other people to carry equipment around. Those are expenses that are easily skipped over that we're trying to pull all those details out, and by the time our experts are done and we've actually documented what the real damages are, it's no longer a $20,000 case. Now it's $100,000 case because we've actually pulled all of those damages out and documented them with people that can get them admissible in court.

So one of the things we've done here recently is we've talked to some former insurance adjusters, former insurance defense lawyers, and the way they describe it is insurance companies, or some insurance companies are not in the business of just withholding and denying claims. What their their approach is, they want to pay claims, or they will pay claims. They may not want to, but they will pay claims that are properly documented. So then this comprehensive documentation becomes the key is the extra effort of going and finding all these details, these details that you mentioned and that you and that you write about, that can make the difference in terms of value. Is that fair? Absolutely. So let me ask you this. And Jeff, you may be better to suited to describe this, but Cooper, jump in where you see fit the the demand. So we've talked about the demand, and if we're if we look at demand as the first impression, like you described, and the first opportunity to forecast to an insurance company, this is what we're going to show at trial. Either resolve this case with us through settlement, or we're going to show this to a jury. And we're going to ask for this much money now, so that's what the demand is. And so if we understand what the demand is, if somebody's what, if somebody's watching this, and that, the question that I would have is, where does this fit into the chronology of an injury case?

Well, you know people, when they come to us and they ask us to be their lawyers, you know we're we're immediately putting an investigator on the case. We're doing an investigation. We've got an intake team of former law enforcement, people that and investigators that know how to get those details and document what happened in the incident. We've got a case manager, a paralegal and attorneys that are walking through the clients or walking with the clients through the medical treatment phase. You know, the ultimate goal of all of this. Goal number one is get the clients as well as they can give them the best care we can, the best medical management we can. And and so, you know, we're trying to help them with, you know, making sure they're seeing the right kind of doctors for the right kind of injuries. And once they've treated and they've gotten well, and we've been able to accumulate all this evidence that we're going to send to Cooper to write about, that's when, that's when we we put all that evidence together and we send it to Cooper to write that custom demand letter for that particular case. Thank you

for joining us, and we'll see you next time you.