When you’re dealing with a complex and dangerous cancer, such as mesothelioma, it can be overwhelming when deciding how best to protect yourself legally. The most important thing is a lawyer’s experience. The main question to ask before making any hiring decisions is has the lawyer tried mesothelioma cases in front of a jury? Obviously, asbestos companies are going to offer the most money to lawyers who are experienced in actually trying mesothelioma cases and those who have gotten verdicts against them.
The second reason experience is so important is you’re going to be looking back twenty, thirty, forty, or even fifty years into your work history. At The Segal Law Firm, we have thousands of sworn statements from people who worked in power houses, chemical plants and industrial facilitates. These statements tell us what asbestos products and whose asbestos products were used at various facilities over the years. This is critically important to your case because you don’t only have to prove you have the disease mesothelioma, you have to prove whose asbestos you’ve breathed that gave you the disease and if you don’t have a lawyer who has that information in his databases, you’re going to have an uphill battle.
We’re not talking about one or two or three asbestos products here, we’re talking hundreds. I’ve read about these products; I how they were made, what years they were made and what the companies knew and didn’t tell the workers. I truly appreciate it when a client comes to me and says, “What’s your experience with this? How do you know about this?” I can explain whatever they want in detail. If they want to understand the history of asbestos, how long it’s been used, how it was mined, or where the different types came from, I’ve got the answers. It was used in the Navy, in chemical plants, in power houses, in industrial facilities and on hundreds of different products; gaskets, pipe coverings, cements, boiler liners, bricks, and pipes. I mean, it goes on and on.
I enjoy it when people want me to demonstrate for them in our first interviews that I have the experience to help them and their family. You shouldn’t be shy about that. If you’ve been diagnosed with the disease mesothelioma, you should not be shy about questioning your lawyer about his or her trial experience in this field because that’s critical to you and to your family. Any lawyer who doesn’t appreciate spending time with you and answering questions about not only the legalities, but their experience with the disease, the companies, the products and the facilities, well, that’s not someone you should be hiring. You want someone that feels comfortable sitting around with you and talking about all of those types of issues before you make a decision as important as hiring a lawyer to handle your mesothelioma case.
The reason an extensive knowledge of asbestos and its history is so important is that a trial can get really complicated when you’re trying to prove who is at fault. You have to remember that throughout the years, products contained different types of asbestos, different amounts of asbestos, and what a lot of people don’t know is that several of the products were actually rebranded two or three different times. This is essential to a case because all of those companies would be liable to the victim of mesothelioma. We usually sue over a hundred asbestos companies in our lawsuits that involve an industrial worker because so many products were used during those decades.
You have to remember that asbestos became a very popular product right around the second World War, all the way up to almost the 1980’s. You need a lawyer that understands its history and has research as his fingertips so that it’s not as complex to go back and find the information that’s crucial in a court of law. This is what it will take to protect you and your family. Like I’ve said before, I’m very open to questions about mesothelioma or what needs to be done to protect victims legally during this difficult time. Feel free to call us here at The Segal Law Firm and we will get your questions answered. You can reach us at 855-344-9100.