Working With Your Asbestos Attorney

Once you’ve selected your perfect attorney, one of the firm’s staff will collect your records from doctors, hospitals, the Social Security Administration, and the VA if you were ever a member of the military. Because most asbestos injuries were caused on the job, they’ll also contact all of your old employers, including unions, plants, refineries, and the contractors that maintained them.

The legal assistant will also ask you to trawl through your memories to help clarify the records. It’s a good idea to sit down at home before meeting with the paralegal, and try to remember every place where you were exposed to asbestos and every asbestos-containing product you ever used.

These memories must be as specific as possible. What did the product look like? How was it used? Did it spray dust into the air around you when you poured it into a bucket or cut it with a saw? Was it in a fifty-pound paper sack or stacked on a pallet? You should even try to remember the color of the packaging.

Try to remember on your own at first. If that doesn’t work, call all your old work buddies and see if they can refresh your memories. Chances are, they’re doing the same thing themselves.

Write down everything you can think of, including changing the brakes or clutch pads on your cars, and do-it-yourself projects at home such as insulating the attic or taping and floating the walls in the living room. So many of those products contained asbestos, and so many of the firms that manufactured those products have gone out of business or bankrupt through the years, that you want as many on your list as possible.

The deposition
At some point in the process, the opposing attorneys will want to take your deposition, which is a legal record of your sworn testimony just as if you were in trial. This is usually arranged in someone’s boardroom, although if the victim is very ill, it can take place in a hospital room or the person’s home.

All of the attorneys representing all the firms you remembered that ever exposed you to asbestos, will gather together in one place. If you remembered a lot of different companies, there will be a lot of attorneys. They’ll take turns asking you questions about what you remembered. While everyone will be polite and even kind, they’ll test you. They’ll want to know if these memories are truly yours, or if you’ve done Internet research or spoken with other people or looked at pictures of old products at your attorney’s office.

Be honest. Follow your attorney’s advice. He’ll be sitting beside you all day and that’s what he’s there for. And if you remembered a lot of companies, then it will be a very long day, while all those attorneys take turns asking questions. When you need a break, don’t hesitate to say so.

After the deposition, it’s in your attorney’s hands. Even if he anticipates taking your case to court against some of those companies, most of the others will want to settle. Your attorney will handle the negotiations and he’ll send you the settlement papers for each company. Get them signed and notarized, and return them to him as quickly as possible.

Money won’t bring back your health. But it can pay your medical expenses. And perhaps it will make future companies think twice before endangering people’s lives so carelessly.