Just like one of my favorite toys growing up, often times in a personal injury case there is more than meets the eye. In most cases there is a bit of information that can turn a good case into a great one (or a bad one). But to find that bit of information, the lawyer needs to do a little digging.
The digging, the investigation, is one of my favorite parts of being a personal injury lawyer. I love hitting the pavement and tracking down and interviewing witnesses, or going to the scene of an accident, or digging through medical records, or talking to a doctor about the severity of an injury. Not only is it fun for me, but it often benefits my clients. I might find that someone who injured my client because he or she ran a red light actually had defective brakes. Or, I might find that a client's apparently pre-existing medical condition was actually caused or exacerbated by a car accident or slip and fall.
For example, I had a trucking case where the accident report said my client veered off the highway into a broken down truck on the shoulder. After tracking down and interviewing an eyewitness, I discovered that the police report was wrong. The eyewitness said the truck was parked partially into the lanes of travel on the highway and that my client actually tried to avoid the truck. The eyewitness' testimony turned the case around and we were able to negotiate a fair settlement.
Therefore, it is very important in every injury case to do some digging. It often leads to very useful information that can change the characteristics of a case.