If you’ve engaged the services of a Houston personal injury attorney to represent you in a lawsuit related to a car accident, there will be an investigation involved. The attorney will need to collect evidence to back up your claim, and, to accomplish this, they will use their own investigators. This is much different than a police investigation in a very important way.
What the Police Want
When the police or other law enforcement agencies investigate an accident, they’re looking for criminal infractions. They’re not interested in whether or not the other driver was negligent, unless that negligence was somehow actually criminal.
The police are very good investigators and they have the forensic abilities required to reconstruct accidents very accurately. This helps them to determine whether or not one of the drivers involved did something that was in direct violation of criminal law and that led to the accident. What they find out in the course of their investigation may contribute to your case, but it will not be done on your behalf.
What Your Attorney Wants
Your attorney will specifically be interested in negligence. Your attorney, among other things, is trying to determine where financial responsibility for the accident lies. They will have investigators look at the circumstances of the accident and the scene of the accident to collect any evidence that may be available that bolsters your case.
Your attorney may find out that, for instance, the other driver didn’t check an intersection before they started to cross it, that they failed to check for vehicles before they backed out of their driveway or that they were negligent in some other regard that was directly a cause of your accident.
In some cases, your attorney will actually create a computer simulation of the accident so that they can review what happened. This will sometimes reveal where negligence played a role in you coming to harm.
Starting the Investigation
The very first part of this investigation will usually take place at your consultation with a Houston personal injury attorney. They’ll need to sit down with you and get as much information as you can give them about what happened. Don’t worry if you don’t remember exactly how the accident occurred. This is common, particularly in cases where the victim may have suffered a head injury.
If the attorney determines that you likely do have good cause to file a lawsuit and that they want to represent you, they will gather a great deal of evidence, including that which comes from their investigations into the scene of the accident. All of this evidence will be used to argue your case before a jury as convincingly as possible and, if you win, to help you get the largest possible jury award or settlement you can.