While a bad outcome from medical care is not necessarily the result of malpractice, the error causing a patient’s injury may sometime not be obvious – even to the physicians themselves. It often takes both a legal and medical background plus the deductive and analytical skills of a Sherlock Holmes to unearth the hidden cause of a medically related injury. In many cases, Cirignani Heller & Harman has been able to do this after others have failed. In one such case, a family that had lost a husband and father, had the case rejected as having no liability by several well-known Chicago law firms. With just days left to the deadline for filing the lawsuit this client came to CH&H. Our doctor-lawyers saw something the others missed. Suit was filed and ultimately resulted in a verdict in excess of $8 million dollars.
Generally speaking, there are two factors that determine whether you have a case we will want to handle. First, is liability. Do the medical records and other evidence indicate a mistake was made? We handle each case differently, depending on the facts and circumstances. However, in general, we will begin answering this question by interviewing you. Then, with your consent, we will obtain your medical records from your doctors and hospitals. After we have reviewed your medical records we will have a pretty good sense whether there may have been a mistake made. We may then advise you that a law suit may benefit you.
The second factor that we consider is injury. Unfortunately, with all of the efforts being made to limit a patient’s rights to recover for medical malpractice litigation in medical malpractice is both very expensive and very risky. As a result, we can only handle cases where there has been a significant permanent injury. Whether you have such an injury is a question your lawyer needs to assess. Sometimes, people do not know just how serious an injury could be. So err on the safe side and have your case assessed by us before you decide there is no case. The assessment is free and because we have lawyers who are also doctors, we are especially able to help make this determination.
