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Many here at the Legal Examiner have pointed out how early investigation can make a difference in cases. The experienced attorney will know what questions to asked and what to do. One questions is whether there should be an accident reconstruction. These can be expensive, but they also can be vital to understanding what happened.

At our firm we have used a number of different reconstructionist over time. We had one case where we did a reconstruction the week before trial because a new issue had developed with the testimony of the police reconstruction. The issue was the identification of a tire mark. We hired a stunt motorcycle rider to lay down a skid at 100 miles an hour on a road we paid to have closed. It was interesting, a little scary, and absolutely vital to compare the tracks.

The advantages that the contingency system gave this client were clear. There is no way they could have fronted the costs for the test or known how to get the road closed. There probably are a number of firms that would have taken the risk of not doing the testing. But many of them wouldn't have been heading to trial either.

A WCCO story had an interesting quote:


What we like to do is wait until we get witness statements, driver statements, toxicology reports, medical examiners, coroners, all that stuff we like to have before we do our final report," he said. "We want to see the whole package before we form our opinion and put it down and live with the results".

If you let the insurance companies choose what to collect the last sentence may be far truer than you will ever know.

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