Since birth injury lawsuits are unique types of medical negligence claims, they often are more expensive and may take longer to resolve. However, hiring an attorney who has handled these types of cases can provide you with more definitive guidelines on the cost and time involved than a general practitioner can.

We asked Jeff Milman, an attorney who has been practicing medical negligence and birth injury law for 26 years and member of the Advocate Law Group, the following questions on the cost and time involved from his years of experience in this field. Here’s what he told us:

Costs:

How much money does it take to prosecute a birth injury case?

I would say, realistically, to get the case into settlement mode, at least $40,000 or $50,000. If you’re going to go to trial and spend two or three weeks in trial, it could go upwards as high as $150,000 in costs. Those costs are generated by the sheer volume of discovery, depositions and experts that are used.

Who is generally responsible for paying for the upfront costs in these types of cases?

Sometimes we’ll ask the client to pay the initial expert review, maybe $1000 or less. But by and by, the law firm expends the costs for the majority of these on a contingency basis. If we recover a settlement or verdict, we would be reimbursed our costs.

Time Frames:

How long does it take to prosecute one of these cases?

It depends on what court and state you’re in. When I first started practice in California, it would take upwards of five years to get a case to trial. Now, for example, in California’s Orange County, they’re generally done within 18 months. In Riverside County in California, they have a moratorium. They can’t get civil cases out to trial so you’re kind of victim to whatever the court system is.

How many cases go to trial versus settling?

In medical negligence, we tend to try more cases than you would in, for example, car accident cases or business cases. I would say probably about 90% of our cases settle and the key to that is good case selection. We have to have good experts and we’ve got to have a good case going in or else it’s going to be a disaster.

How long does it generally take to get to arbitration in the Kaiser Permanente process?

Kaiser requires arbitration, but now has fixed rules. Before they were somewhat guilty of taking too long and our Supreme Court in California was very critical of them. They’ve now put together what they call the OIA, or Office of Independent Administrator, and the goal is to get these cases to trial within 12 to 18 months and they are succeeding in that regard.

If your child was profoundly injured or died as the result of medical negligence, contact an attorney whose practice focuses in this area of law for help. To contact an experienced attorney near you, please click here.