Ethical Issues Facing Personal Injuries

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In our society, people satirize and stigmatize lawyers as being greedy, selfish, callous, and even unethical. Especially in the personal injury field of law, people paint plaintiff attorneys as “ambulance chasers” and insurance carrier defendant attorneys as “deep pockets” for damages. Whether or not these stereotypical glazes apply to some attorneys in the practice, potential ethical dilemmas do exist. It is important to the practice; however, that attorneys act ethically and responsibly, despite these stigmas, to seek remedies for genuinely injured clients and to diligently defend those facing personal injury claims. I am the first in my extended family to attend law school, and after I was accepted, my aunts, uncles, and cousins would …show more content…

Since I have begun my externship and seminar, I have considered the stigmas, ethical pitfalls, and “slippery slopes” of the personal injury field, and although I have not witnessed any unethical behavior by the Abamont & Associates team, I have noticed that they can exist in the profession. For example, Independent medical examiners, those hired by the carrier with the purpose of (objectively) showing that the plaintiff’s injuries are not as severe as alleged, may be incentivized to minimize the extent of the …show more content…

Some plaintiff attorneys exaggerate or embellish their client’s injuries or “creatively malign” the evidence or issues. After arriving early to observe an EBT, or Examination Before Trial, I sat in the waiting room outside of a conference room in which an attorney was prepping his plaintiff, (who was not a party to any Abamont & Associates case). I could not hear the entirety of the conversation but did overhear the plaintiff utter “I will say whatever you want to win my case” and something about how the other party’s insurance company should pay more because they are a big corporation. Although I did not hear the attorney’s response, this situation spoke to both the stigmas and ethical snares of the legal

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