subject: The Deal With The Pity Strategy [print this page] The everyday personal injury lawyer has a lot in common with a famous American clown. The best method of raising money is by pushing the pity button and this is by each one of them selling an image of his client as one which has lost everything. What their pity strategy has is a darker, harmful side, something that has been illustrated by a recent heart chilling murder suicide in Alexandria, Virginia.
Taking the amount of a jury award into consideration, it can vary directly with the strength of the tug on the juror's heartstrings. One problem with the pity technique is that it usually convinces not only the jurors, but also the injured plaintiff and the plaintiff's family, of the bleakness of his future. In terms of this, rethinking the strategy is an option for some lawyers.
The notion of a newly disabled person and his family is that nothing meaningful will ever be possible again. Here, continuous preparations for trials and court battles shortly follow.
As mentioned by a lawyer and an Oakland, California consultant to personal injury lawyers, these social setups carry a special message for the trial bar. Here, how vegetablelike a plaintiff is should not be used to measure personal injury damages. The consideration of the costs of regaining the meaning of one's life will be a whole lot better. The consultant says most plaintiffs do not need to emphasize the degrading type of evidence that apparently was largely unavoidable in this man's suit.Traditionally, however, no trial lawyer is considered worth his salt if he overlooks any opportunity to dramatize his client's plight as pathetic and abhorrent. Most of the time, before and during the trial, the client will be instructed to refrain from independent activities including caring for his own personal needs. What will gain you some money in this case is that lack of actions.
This is a much better approach according to the California lawyer rather than the wild reasoning of the Vietnam War era which held that destruction is the only way to salvation. With regard to the shift of focus from being hopeless to being independent, she thinks that this will get a positive response from the jurors. What may be part of the typical costs of independence is buying and maintaining various kinds of sophisticated high tech equipment that can assist in mobility and functioning.
At the plaintiff's office or in his home, other possible inclusions are personal attendant and homemaking services, substantial modifications which make use of robotics and computer technology, sex and peer counseling, and job training. When it comes to discrimination and stigma, the inevitable social consequences of disability, negligence is a no no. Here, the injuries are not the responsible parties for these problems but the archaic attitudes of society toward disabled persons are.
If social exclusion is not bad enough, you have inaccessible buildings and transportation systems not to mention job and housing discrimination. In this case, the damages from such causes create arguments that provide a realistic basis for a large reward but the individual is not demeaned in any way. A life with severe disability and the accompanying social stigma is never easy. A useful and rewarding life can still be possible. This is achievable if the disabled person is not conditioned to see himself as worthless.
