Your Personal Injury Attorney and What You Should Tell Him

One of the biggest reasons for the confidentiality privilege between a client and his lawyer is to foster confidence and honesty between the parties. You will have a difficult time forging a productive relationship with your personal injury attorney if you withhold pertinent information. This information can come back to hurt you, should opposing lawyers uncover it without your own lawyer knowing anything about it. There's nothing a lawyer hates more than being caught off guard. Serious revelations can send a promising case heading right off the rails. Here are some of the things you need to be up front about.

Criminal Charges

If you've had a few speeding tickets in the past, it probably won't have any relevance to your case (unless, of course, the case surrounds an automobile accident, in which case they might have some importance after all), but you'll want to be up front about any major criminal activity in your past. If you've been imprisoned for running a con, for instance, the opposing lawyers are going to have a field day with the information. If your personal injury attorney can be given the time to prepare accordingly, the damage may be minimized.

Pre-Existing Conditions

If you're going after a company for causing your neck injuries, it's going to look back in negotiations (or in court) if it comes out that you injured your neck a few years before the current incident ever happened. Perhaps they legitimately have nothing to do with each other. Maybe the current incident aggravated the prior condition. Regardless, this is something your personal injury attorney needs to know about. It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that a new incident worsened the effects of a prior one. But when it comes across like you're hiding something, it can be difficult to come back from that perception.

Complete Honesty

Does your childhood battle with the chicken pox have anything to do with the lawsuit you're filing against a negligent trucking company? Probably not, but if you use a little judgment, you can probably discern what might be relevant and what won't be. If anything, however, err on the side of telling too much. Your personal injury attorney will be more than happy to tell you that he doesn't think this or that has anything to do with the case. If he knows what he's doing (and you don't get too ridiculous with your honesty), he should appreciate your being forthcoming. Having too much information is always preferable to not having enough.