Welcome to today’s program. Today what we’re going to be talking about is what is a smart injury lawyer? Well, every day in America, every seven seconds, there’s a work-related injury. Every seven seconds in America, there’s an auto-related injury. And every day, every two seconds in America, there’s a home-related injury. So, injuries are the number one cause of chronic pain in the country and in the world today. Oftentimes, an injury patient or a patient that’s been injured may require the services of a lawyer in order to assist them with the adjudication process of their claim.

What we call a smart injury lawyer is one of the most sought-after lawyers in the market.

 There’s a reason why they’re the most sought after lawyers in the market, is because they’re unusual in the fact that they understand the injuries that they represent. Now they don’t have a doctorate. They’re not medical doctors. They’re not chiropractors. They’re not osteopaths. They’re not medical professionals. They’re not healthcare professionals, but they know about the injuries that they represent. That’s what makes them so sought after. Sought after from the patient’s point-of-view, or the client’s point-of-view. Sought after from doctor referrals point-of-view, because doctors want to work with attorneys that understand the injuries.

I have been a doctor in the injury market for the last 30 years.

 I’ve been a licensed doctor of chiropractic for the last 30 years. I’ve had a law degree since 2013 with special emphasis in personal injury work. Now I’m going to tell you that the majority of doctors in the spinal injury market, the biggest frustration that they have as doctors is that they’re oftentimes working with a client, with a patient, in their case a patient, that is working with an attorney that does not understand their injuries at all. In the area of spinal injuries, this is rampant in the legal community. Most attorneys in my experience do not know anything about the injuries that they represent when it comes to spinal injuries. Things like spinal ligament injuries, they have very little information on. A smart injury lawyer knows to the “T” what these injuries are all about, not because they have a medical degree in it, but because they have basic training and basic understanding of what these … just how significant these injuries are.

Today, they’re the number one cause of chronic pain and disability.

If you read the American Pain Association’s 2007 low back guidelines, an injury to the lower back, just the medical management of that condition is $9,000 to $19,000 per year. Work comp, if we go to worker’s comp, average cost of an average medically documented injury, according to the National Safety Council, is $42,000 per injury. The majority of these injuries are spinal injuries. So, what a smart injury lawyer in the market today is, is it’s a lawyer that actually understands the injuries that their client has. A smart injury lawyer that knows back and neck injuries knows that MRI is not necessarily the greatest test for ligament damage, not because MRI is not a great test. MRI is a great test. There are 23 discs that are specialized ligaments in the spine. MRI is a great imaging test for those 23 ligaments, however there’s over 220 specialized ligaments that hold the spine together.

One of the most major findings in a ligament injury was never designed to be picked up on MRI.

That’s excessive motion. Excessive motion, so anytime that you injure a joint, and the ligaments hold a joint together, anytime you damage the ligaments to the joint, the joint bones in their movement patterns will show excessive motion on stress testing. It’s a specialized form of radiographic testing that tests to see in different positions if the joint is slipping in and out of alignment. So, a smart injury lawyer knows that MRI of the spine was never designed to pick up excessive motion. So, it’s not a bad test. It’s just not a great test when it comes to ligament assessments. Smart injury lawyers know that the primary imaging procedure used is a set of great digital X-rays. A great digital X-ray study will tell you a lot about the ligament status of the, in this case, client.

Now, a smart injury lawyer will also know that if you have an excessive motion in the spine, so a smart injury lawyer knows that whenever you damage a body part, you must derange it. There’s no way to damage a human body part without deranging it. If a person’s bitten by a dog, there’s a very unique dog bite, which is a lesion or a derangement pattern that’s left behind. If a person is burned, it doesn’t look like a dog bite. The derangement pattern looks different. If a person is shot with a gun, and they have a gunshot wound, the derangement pattern is different.

Different types of injuries leave different types of derangement patterns behind.

In the spine, we have shear and compressive force. Whether the person’s in an auto accident, they slip and fall at home, they slip and fall at work, they lift something that’s too heavy for them at work, there’s shear force and compressive force to the spine. Now if the spine gets damaged, the ligaments get damaged. It causes excessive motion. The excessive motion is how a smart injury lawyer for back and neck injuries knows that’s the best way to assess the amount of ligament damage that you have. They also know that in the AMA impairment guides, which are basically injury guidelines, that there are three specific findings for spinal damage. One is picked up on a CTR X-ray, it’s called a fracture. One is a ligament finding picked up on X-ray, and accurately measured intersegmental motion study called a CRMA, or a computerized radiographic mensuration analysis. And then the other ligament finding, if the disc is involved, is an MRI.

We have to remember, if we go up to the top of the neck, there are no discs involved up there. So, your X-ray study is still your best study. So, what is a smart injury lawyer? A smart injury lawyer is a lawyer that understands the injuries. They don’t just turn cases. They actually take the time to learn about the injuries that they’re representing. That’s what makes them very sought after. That’s why doctors want to refer to them and that’s why patients seek them out. All I wanted to do today was just to explain, that’s what a smart injury lawyer is.

For more information on Spinal Ligament Injuries please check us out at www.smartinjurydoctor.com or check out our SmartInjuryDoctors® Podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play or Stitcher.

For information on spinal ligament testing by board certified medical radiologists go to www.thespinalkinetics.com