What is a birth injury lawyer?
Birth Injury Lawyers represent parents and children in lawsuits against medical providers that were responsible for causing injuries to infants during the labor and delivery process.
Travis Charles Smith is an attorney representing mothers, fathers, and infants in cases against Oklahoma hospitals and physicians that were negligent during labor and delivery.
What does a Birth Injury Lawyer do?
The first and primary benefit of hiring a birth injury lawyer is that you begin to get answers to questions you didn’t know to ask, and were never told about. After birth complications are discovered, there is much going on with the medical staff in responding to the problem. For this and other reasons, the parents are often left in the dark as to what is going.
This is not to say that hospitals never communicate. Moreover, the medical staff may relay certain information, or even certain conclusory statements. But explanation and analysis of what’s behind those findings is often lacking. And that means that you as a parent do not understand why something happened the way it did.
A Birth Injury Attorney Investigates the case to determine who is at fault
Our job as your birth injury lawyers is to first investigate what happened. This will require us to obtain the complete medical file from the hospital, and to work with physicians and medical experts to review the file and see what we can find.
We often hire several different types of physicians and nurses to review these files. The types of doctors we typically employ in these cases range from doctors of obstetrics and gynecology (OBGYN), to Pediatric NeuroRadiologists, to rehabilitation physiatrists, and to various types of labor and delivery nurses, among other medical professionals.
It is important to first consult with these experienced medical experts in order to determine if any of the health care providers in your case were negligent, or failed to take accepted medical interventions.
Applying Oklahoma law to determine whether liability exists for your Birth Injury
After reviewing the medical records with our experts, we must then review pertinent Oklahoma statutes and cases to be sure there is sufficient legal liability to be applied to what we discovered in our case review.
Sometimes the liability is obvious, but sometimes it is not immediately clear. Therefore, we must be sure that our clients have a claim that can be successfully brought in court.
We must do all of this work before filing a lawsuit and sending a demand letter for settlement. If not, we have no way to properly explain our case, from both a legal and medical perspective, and therefore we will not be able to effectively negotiate a settlement.
All of this pre-litigation research and consulting is time intensive, and costly, as experts are not cheap. But this is a necessary prerequisite, that we take on and pay for, when representing parents and infants in birth injury cases.
Communicating with client our legal opinions about their case
Once our initial investigation is complete, we will meet with our clients to discuss what we have been able to discover up to this point. This will include facts about the labor and delivery process, any complications that arose, any actions that should have been taken, and any other comments made by our expert witnesses.
We may also discuss what we do not know, because we have not had access to the information. This could mean that we need to conduct discovery during the lawsuit process to obtain this information, whether by subpoena or deposition.
In any event, at this point, we will be able to tell you whether you have a viable case, likely to prevail, and whether we would be willing to undertake it on a contingency fee.
Hiring a lawyer for a Birth Injury case in Oklahoma
The first step in hiring us is to simply call us at 405-701-6016 or send us an email. We will then schedule a longer phone consultation to discuss your case.
When you hire us, we will not charge you an up front retainer, as is typical in most legal services. We represent victims of birth injuries on a contingency basis, which means we will only charge you if we are able to obtain a verdict or settlement on your behalf. Our fee will be a percentage of that amount, which we will agree to at the start of the relationship.
Oklahoma Birth Injury Lawyer will finance all of the lawsuit expenses
We will also agree to finance the costs of the investigation, the litigation, and all other related expenses, such as depositions, transcripts, and expert witnesses. If we are unsuccessful in obtaining an award, you will not owe us for any costs that we advance.
We often work with other lawyers, and will bring additional members to the team as we see necessary. Our goal is to win and win at all costs. Again, you do not owe us unless and until we obtain an award on your behalf. We finance all costs of the case until a settlement or verdict is obtained.
But we do not shy away from what it takes to compete in multimillion-dollar litigation against large entities and their global insurance carriers. We will do what is necessary, including employing whatever outside personnel we may need to win your case.
We have found that we achieve the best outcome — that is, the most money for your case, as quickly as possible — when we cut no corners on hiring the very best subject matter experts in the field. Having credible experts back up the merit of your case is what is necessary to convince a judge and jury of the merit of your case, and the insurance carrier to pay up the full amount you deserve.
To set up an appointment with Travis Charles Smith and his team to discuss your birth injury case, please call us 405-701-6016 or send us an email.