Your relationship with your wrongful death lawyer may be one of the most important relationships you will ever build. One of the biggest elements of most wrongful death claims is the mental and emotional pain and suffering of the survivors. If you and your attorney don’t know each other well and don’t care about each other, it will be extremely hard for your attorney to be the most effective advocate possible. Big settlements come when the attorney presenting the arguments does so with passion and with compassion for their client. The idea is to love your client and to transfer that love to the adjuster evaluating the case, to the judge presiding over the case, and, if necessary, to the jury who will ultimately decide the value of the case. Great lawyers love their clients. Great wrongful death lawyers are empathic. They have the ability to feel their client’s pain to some extent and transfer that feeling to others through body language and words. A lawyer can’t do that unless they truly know their client.
When prosecuting a wrongful death case, I always go to my client’s home. I look through their photo albums. I look at the photos on the mantle or by their bed. I go to the deceased’s closet and see what my client has done with it since the death of their beloved. A few times I’ve seen that my client has built a shrine in honor of their beloved. I sit down, break bread with my client, and listen to stories about their deceased loved one. I try to put myself in their shoes and understand how much they are suffering. I often cry with my client. Sometimes I cry after I leave. When it comes time to present my client’s case, I am emotionally involved, and the people I present it to can feel it. That’s how you get full and fair value for a wrongful death case.
One technique I’m working with to build a closer bond between myself and my clients is utilizing the technology of texting. We have a software program that automatically saves all texts we receive from our clients in our clients’ computerized files. This is very helpful because it allows my clients to send me texts 24/7, in real-time, as they feel or think about their loved one. It’s similar to journaling, but the difference is that every communication between the client and me is confidential, privileged communication. Nobody will ever see these texts unless we want them to. It allows me to stay connected to my client and understand what they are going through more thoroughly. I tell my client to text as much as possible. I won’t respond to every text, but I’ll read them all, and it will serve as a memory aid later on when my client is testifying about their suffering.
If you have a potential wrongful death case, it’s imperative that you hire an attorney who holds compassion as an important value. I highly recommend you contact an experienced wrongful death attorney immediately, because evidence tends to fade or disappear with time, and these cases live or die by the evidence we can present, not only about the facts of the case and how the death occurred but about the pain and suffering of the survivors.
Sincerely,
Jimmy Fasig
Wrongful Death Attorney
Fasig Brooks Law Offices
(850)777-7777
