Any personal injury litigation starts with your injury. You are suing to be compensated for your injury.
Hiring an attorney to represent you is often the next step. You will likely sign a "contingency fee" agreement. This means, you are responsible for litigation expenses, but not your attorney's fees/time. Your attorney is compensated from settlement/judgment, but you are required to pay litigation expenses as they are incurred throughout the litigation process.
If your case does not settle in its initial stages, your attorney will file a complaint at law or lawsuit. Filing suit incurs various court costs and can include costs to ensure that the person/entity you are suing gets a copy of your complaint. This is a litigation expense that you are required to pay.
After filing suit, the discovery phase beings. In the discovery phase, your attorney collects facts and information in the form of testimony and documents/tangible items. You are typically responsible for all expenses related to discovery such as postage, record request fees, copying fees, mileage fees, and the like. All of these add up and can be hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per case.
Depositions are also part of discovery. A deposition is essentially a sworn under oath question session where a witness is asked questions and required to answer. Almost every personal injury suit involves depositions. Depositions are a large part of litigation expenses, for which you are required to pay. You are billed for the court reporter making the transcript, transcript fees, and sometimes the witness' time for the deposition.
Discovery also often involves experts. Experts are often hired prior to filing suit to conduct physical impairment evaluations, for example. Experts are expensive but add value to your case by offering proof of your injury or mechanism of injury. They include medical doctors, reconstruction engineers, forensic toxicologists, pain management specialists, etc. You are required to pay for their deposition, reports and overall time at a great expense.
If you file suit you will be required to mediate. Mediation is an informal alternative dispute procedure where, with the help of a neutral third party, you and the person that injured you try to settle the case. You are often responsible for the mediator's time and associated expenses. Mediators are typically attorneys or retired judges and can be expensive.
At anytime leading up to trial but most typically at mediation, cases settle. If your case settles, your attorney will pay off any liens on your case file, pay himself/herself attorneys' fees, then pay you the remaining portion.
If your case fails to settle at mediation or otherwise, your case is likely going to trial. Preparing for trial is expensive. There are numerous expenses incurred such as demonstrative evidence displays, jury research, copying of exhibits and trial materials.
If your case does not settle, but instead, goes to trial and you win, the court will issue a judgment in your favor. A judgment is the paper proof that you won and it describes the amount awarded to you to compensate you for your injuries. It is the key that lets you open the door to collect money to satisfy your judgment through collections.
Collections is the legal process of satisfying your judgment. In many ways it is another cycle of the litigation process.You are required to pay for all the expenses associated with collecting on your judgment. These expenses may include, sheriff's fees, auction fees, mileage, copying, postage, record fees and the like.
The final step to the litigation process if your case goes to trial is the satisfaction of judgment step. This is the final notice to the court that you were able to fully collect everything to which you were entitled per your judgment. It typically involves copying, administrative, and postage fees.
