You Rejected a Great Offer, Now What?

I’m David Holub, an attorney focusing on personal injury law in northwest Indiana.

Welcome to Personal Injury Primer, where we break down the law into simple terms, provide legal tips, and discuss topics related to personal injury law.

Every so often, a good settlement offer is presented to a client and the client says, “No way.”

You ask “what happens in a situation where a good settlement offer is rejected?”

When an offer is presented by an attorney, the attorney is expected to give their opinion as to whether the value of the offer is acceptable or not.

Sometimes a person who is injured is too emotionally intertwined in a case to see how an objective observer might view and evaluate their injuries. That is okay. That is why attorneys are supposed to remain objective while at the same time standing up for you and being your advocate.

A person who is not being objective, and is not listening to their attorney, may have a difficult time seeing when an offer is a solid and good offer.

When you have suffered physically and emotionally for a long time my guess is the even the best of settlement offers can appear to be insufficient. It is hard to put a dollar value on suffering.

When a defendant’s best offer is rejected the next step, we have to go through finalize trial preparation.

Final trial preparation includes having the client go through what would be a draft run of direct examination, advising them how to dress for trial, and giving them an idea of what to expect from cross examination.

Preparing for cross examination is often quite difficult for clients. To do it well, we have to pretend that we are the defense attorney and we ask them pointed questions that would be designed to attack their credibility and attack the validity of their cases.

So, when we do this mock cross examination, we point out every inconsistency that our client has made and whatever inconsistency the defense team might otherwise pick up on, such as giving inconsistent statements to a medical doctor.

Plus, we have to tell our client that if a defendant presents evidence to a court that a witness has lied, they will have the right to ask the court to instruct the jury on what it means to violate an oath to tell the truth.

Going through this kind of simulation is not enjoyable, at least from the report of most clients.

But it does show them what will be coming when they go to trial, because trial is the next step if a fair settlement offer is rejected.

I hope you found this information helpful. If you have questions about your legal rights if you get hurt due to the carelessness of another person, or as a result of substandard medical care, or due to a product defect, construction injury, or any other type of personal injury, please give us a call at (219) 736-9700. You can also learn more about us by visiting our website at www.DavidHolubLaw.com – while there make sure you request a copy of our book “Fighting for Truth”.