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What Does Litigation Mean and How Can It Affect My Injury Case?

Litigation is one of those terms that’s often tossed around in Hollywood and provides a lot of confusion for the average person. When it comes to your injury case, it’s important to understand exactly what litigation means and how it will affect your injury case. In this post, we’ll take a look at what, exactly, litigation means and how it affects your injury case.

For all intents and purposes, litigation is everything that can potentially lead up to an actual court hearing or trial. The process can include:

  • Attempted settlement
  • Serving court summons and complaints
  • Discovery
  • Settlement Conference
  • Trial

Each of these steps are an important part of the litigation process that can ultimately lead to a trial if not completed. We’ll take you through each step so you know exactly what litigation will mean to your case.

Attempted Settlement

Before anything happens the first stage of litigations is for the two parties to try and meet to negotiate a settlement before any actual court processes take place. Whether this phase works or not is entirely dependent on the parties’ willingness to cooperate and the situation. If a settlement is reached the case is closed and litigations cease here. If a settlement is not reached the litigation continues onward with a court summons.

Serving Papers and Discovery

If a settlement cannot be reached the plaintiff will need to file the necessary paperwork to begin the actual court process and ultimately the discovery phase. The discovery phase of litigation is when each party will send each other questions which can be used in the trial. At this point, both parties will have around 30 days to collect all the information they need from each other before they move on to the next phase.

Settlement Conference

Following the discovery phase of litigation, most courts will require both parties to attend a settlement conference where they’ll attempt to reach a settlement once again. Often times this is when most cases will be closed and litigations will end due to substantial evidence on one side or another. If a settlement, again, cannot be reached, they will continue on to an actual trial.

Ending Litigations

A trial marks the end of litigations and the beginning of the actual court hearing process itself. At this point the court will decide the end product of the dispute. In the case of injuries, a settlement can often be reached, however a trial is a likely end result. While the litigation process can be long it’s a fairly simple one however, if you’re still confused please contact us to set up a FREE consultation! Otherwise, we hope this has answered your questions on what litigations mean and how they can affect your injury case!

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