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Have you been in a car accident? Suffered an injury due to medial malpractice? Been injured because of negligence on the part of a corporation? If you are unsure what step to take and are looking for advice from a personal injury expert, you’ve come to the right place: our Personal Injury Law Blog.

Here I aim to give you the information you need to better understand the personal injury claim process. Please watch these short videos and read articles on how to navigate car accidents, work injuries, medical malpractice, and more. And then contact us!

“I’ve been injured but do I need a lawyer?” If you’ve been injured due to another’s neglect—whether it’s an individual, a corporation, or another entity—the answer may be yes. At the beginning of a claim, if you’re not hurt too badly, you’ll be contacted by the insurance company and you can feel free to contact them. HOWEVER…

If you’re wondering if you need a personal injury lawyer, you’ve probably been in a car accident or other accident and experienced an injury. I’m a personal injury trial lawyer who’s been practicing for over four decades. I get asked this question a lot here in Berkshire County MA. Here’s what I say…

If you have an injury that

  • Impairs ability to work
  • Requires medical attention and therefore medical bills
  • Causes physical pain, mental anguish or impairment or disfigurement of your body…

…you should call a lawyer. Know that these insurance companies will do whatever they can to minimize the amount of compensation you will receive. THAT’S when and why you need a personal injury lawyer.

Personal injury lawyers work for YOU and work on a contingent fee basis so that you don’t have to pay anything unless they’re successful in getting you compensation.

I strongly recommend that if you have a serious injury, contact a qualified personal injury lawyer. If you need to learn more about your rights and whether or not you need an attorney to represent you, please feel free to contact me and subscribe to my YouTube channel for more information. I’m based out of Great Barrington MA and am ready to fight for your right for compensation.

Go ahead and watch this video first.

When people are involved in car wrecks, the most common question they have is “How much can I recover for the damages I’ve incurred?” Several factors go into that.

The first factor in determining damages is the negligence of the defendant. If it’s common negligence, like they ran a stop sign or a stop light or rear-ended your vehicle, you’re entitled to compensation for your injuries and damages.

Damages can include physical pain and mental anguish, physical impairment from the activities you were able to do before, physical disfigurement, entitled to recover your lost wages in the past and your capacity to earn in the future, and of course your medical expenses, which can mount every day as you’re seeking to recover.

But there are cases of gross neglect: drivers who are intoxicated; drivers that are under the influence of drugs. When the collision occurs, it will matter how much insurance they have and if they were working for a company.

I recently represented a man who sustained bad injuries in a rear-end collision when he was hit by a truck. We were able to reveal that the defendant’s one million dollars of insurance wasn’t enough. We did some digging in the litigation and found out that they had a universal policy of an additional two million dollars. We were able to get all three million dollars paid to that man due to the diligent work on our part.

You can be sure that the insurance companies are doing everything they can to minimize your claim. You need to work with a personal injury trial attorney who has deep experience in car wreck cases to make sure you get a just recovery.

Do you want to have a conversation to learn more? Email me or call: (413) 429-6400.

Why do personal injury attorneys have such a bad reputation? Well, there are a combination of things in play. Everyone thinks lawyers are the worst – sleazy spinners and ambulance chasers – until they need one. And when someone needs an attorney, that attorney becomes your champion. He or she is the one representing your interest while the insurance companies are doing their best to mitigate your damages and decrease their client’s liability on their clients.

A couple of factors come into play. First, you have to remember the publicity that comes out. These cases are decided by jurors who hear all facts and come up with decisions; but the publicity comes on big high profile cases with big verdicts, which are rare. A big example that I hear frequently is the McDonald’s decision with the woman who was burned by the hot coffee. People remember that as a multi-million-dollar verdict. The truth is that that woman was the 300th person who made a claim against McDonald’s for having their coffee so hot. That verdict, which everyone remembers as multi-million dollars was actually less a million dollars after the process.

In terms of personal injury attorneys’ reputations, we must remember that these manufacturers of products and businesses aren’t necessarily making decisions with your interest in mind. For example, asbestos has been taken out of our walls not because builders and manufacturers were worried about lung cancer; it was their fear of litigation. Silicone implants that were migrating into women’s bodies: they weren’t stopped because the manufacturers were worried that their profits would go down; they were worried about litigation. It’s litigation that often makes the difference and makes the products manufactured here in the United States the safest in the world.

So, don’t disparage all personal injury attorneys. If you need to choose a personal injury attorney, make sure you choose someone with experience and integrity to represent your interests. If you live in South Texas or in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, I hope you will contact me for a free consultation. Email me at Scott@scottsaneslaw.com or call me at (413) 429-6400.

Two offices become one! The Law Offices of Scott A Sanes now in Houston and the Berkshires

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 4, 2017
Contact: Scott Sanes: (413) 429-6400

Law Offices of Scott A. Sanes Now Offers Representation of Personal Injury Victims in Two States

34 years of trial experience in Houston and in the Berkshires

Great Barrington, MA (January 3, 2016) – As of January 1, 2017, personal injury trial attorney Scott Sanes represents clients in the Houston area of Texas and the Berkshires in Massachusetts as Law Offices of Scott A. Sanes (www.scottsaneslaw.com). Sanes most recently represented his Massachusetts clients as the Law Office of Scott A. Sanes, since 2014, and his Texas clients as an owner/partner in the firm Rice & Sanes, since 2007.

“It was time to bring both my practices together under one umbrella to exclusively practice personal injury trial law,” says Sanes. “Since 1982 100% of my practice of law has been representing injury victims while many of my law partners engaged in other areas of law. I have always aggressively represented personal injury victims from the initial claim stage through litigation until the matter is settled or a jury verdict is rendered.”

With over 34 years of experience representing personal injury victims in Texas, Sanes opened his office in Great Barrington after Massachusetts changed the law to allow questioning of potential jurors by lawyers in 2015, a process called Voire Dire – a vitally important process which effects the outcome of every jury verdict. Sanes is the only lawyer in the Berkshires with three decades of experience in questioning potential jurors.

Sanes offers his deep experience to injury victims throughout Massachusetts and specifically in Great Barrington where he lives with his wife and two children. Sanes can be contacted through his website www.scottsaneslaw.com, by phone (413) 429-6400, and by email at scott@scottsaneslaw.com. Scott can also be found on Facebook @scottsaneslaw.

There was a big change in Massachusetts in 2015: for the first time in the Commonwealth’s history lawyers were actually allowed to ask prospective jurors questions during what’s called the Voir Dire process. That’s the process of asking jurors if they can be fair, if they have certain prejudices that might keep them from being fair.

In Massachusetts before 2015, only the judge would get to ask prospective jurors questions and, as a result, the lawyers representing the plaintiffs and defendants wouldn’t be able to question the jurors in a way that would be able to help their case.

In Texas, where I’ve had a law practice for 34 years, all of those 34 years the lawyers have been asking those questions of the jurors. I’m the only attorney in MA, certainly here in the Berkshires, with that kind of experience in questioning the jurors.

You can win or lose your case in jury selection. It’s important to have a trial lawyer in a personal injury case with experience with asking questions to jurors to make the decisions on which jurors are going to be judging your case.

Please contact me for a free consultation at the Law Office of Scott A. Sanes (413) 429-6400.

NOTE: A few years ago I offered some really important reasons to vote in November’s election. (see the list below). But as November 2024 approaches, just remember what the great Governor of Texas, Ann Richards, offered as the best reason to vote: “I vote because if you aren’t at the table, you’re likely on the menu.” Dates have been updated to reflect the Tuesday, November 5 Presidential election.

Quick Tour of US Constitution and Its Amendments

We can all agree that this election cycle has been divisive. Many of us feel disenfranchised by our politicians and the political system. In spite of all this drama – and perhaps because of this drama – I’d like to make the case for voting. Our government and its policies affect every aspect of our lives (health care, homeland security, education, etc.); our votes are our voices.

I just took five minutes and searched the Internet for content on the history of voting here in the US. The sources are many and varied (massvote.org has a detailed list on the history of voting rights). I encourage you to take some time to learn a bit about our Constitution and the amendments relevant to the right to vote. But if you don’t have a chance to do it on your own, I’m going to give you a list of reasons to vote. First, let’s take a tour of the United States Constitution and its Amendments relevant to voting.

A Constitutional Journey to the Right to Vote

The United States Constitution did not guarantee the right to vote. The United States was created by the founders with the premise that only certain individuals would make the decisions.

While our Constitution doesn’t often change, occasionally it does for the betterment of our country. There are several constitutional amendments that address the right to vote:

  • The 14th Amendment: All persons born within the US are citizens and guaranteed rights and privileges (1868). Remember, when our county was founded, and for almost 100 years thereafter, only property owning white men voted. This amendment allowed non-property owning white men to vote.
  • The 15th Amendment: No citizen denied the right to vote based on race, color or previous condition of servitude (1870). This Amendment intended to give men who had been slaves the same privileges as the white majority. In response to this Amendment, states found ways to work around it, such as Jim Crow laws and other barriers, such as literacy tests, poll taxes, and grandfather clauses.
  • The 19th Amendment: No citizen shall be abridged of his or her right to vote based on sex (1920). Obviously, this Amendment gave women the right to vote but only after decades of protests and discrimination.
  • The 24th Amendment: No poll tax is allowed or failure to pay any other tax shall prevent a person from voting (1964). This prohibition of tax on voters eliminated some Jim Crow laws, and allowed people without means to have one less impediment to voting.
  • The 26th Amendment: All persons 18 or older shall not be abridged of their right to vote (1971). This was in response to the Vietnam War and the fact that 18-year-olds could fight for our country but not vote.
  • Voting Rights Act of 1965: This Amendment was passed to overcome the legal barriers at state and local levels that prohibited African Americans from voting.

Because of the Constitution and its Amendments, US citizens have the right to vote. Now that we’ve walked along the historical path of voting, let jump forward to our future and why we all should vote on November 8, 2016.

10 Reasons to Vote on November 5
  1. You have the power: why let other people decide for you? If you don’t stand up for what you believe in, don’t expect someone else to do it for you. Vote.
  2. Feel like you’re not heard and that elected officials don’t represent you? Then vote.
  3. Generations of people fought for your right to vote. Honor them by voting.
  4. Want the issues you care about to have a chance to come to fruition? Then elect the representatives who champion those causes. Vote.
  5. Is your neighbor voting for the “evil” candidate(s)? Vote!
  6. Voting is not mandatory in the US like it is in 22 countries. Vote on November 8 like it’s a law.
  7. This is not just a presidential election. Vote for your local officials to impact local decisions that effect your every day life.
  8. Make a dent or put some emphasis on the winner’s margin of victory. Elected officials who win by small margins are very aware of that and thus forward more moderate agendas, working to appeal to a wider audience in order to get elected again. If your candidate wins by a larger majority, your personal agenda has a better chance to be advanced. Vote.
  9. Our children depend on us to make decisions about their future. Vote for your kids.
  10. While voting is not a requirement, it is a responsibility. Vote.

Did I support your conviction to vote? Let me know! I am a personal injury lawyer and I’d like the opportunity to work with you if you live in or near the Berkshires of Massachusetts. You can call me at (413) 429-6400 or email me at scott@scottsaneslaw.com.

Vote on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.

Most folks wait until they are deep into their education before they decide on their life’s work: I decided to be a lawyer in second grade (specializing in personal injury law came a bit later…). It helped that my Dad, my hero, was a lawyer in Chicago.

My father and my mother both grew up in Chicago, first-generation Americans whose parents had escaped anti-Semitism in Post-World War I Europe. My grandfather’s Chicago bakery afforded my father’s opportunity at education and eventually a law degree – he specialized in real estate law. It was with that foundation, belief in education, and an unremitting work ethic, that my father learned to be the man – and father – that he is. He was “Big Bow” to my “Little Arrow” in Indian Guides, pack master of my Cub Scouts, and threw a tight spiral to me every night during football season. He taught me to be respectful of others and myself. I grew up in a modest home and was taught the value of a coupon, the value of a half-off sale, the value of negotiating, and that reliability is the number one asset.

With that background, trial law became my passion. Even as a youngster I excelled in communication – using words to help my friends, my family, and myself. Not surprisingly, I was drawn to debate in high school. I went on to obtain a business degree at the University of Illinois and then landed at Chicago-Kent College of Law and was a member of Law Review and the Moot Court Team. I graduated with a focus on trial advocacy.

My entire career has been as a personal injury victim advocate. Unlike most attorneys, I have never ventured out into any other area of law. I am proud that when I work, I help people who are hurt, people who really need my expertise to receive the compensation they deserve and, in many cases, desperately need. I am proud that in my life’s work, I have lifted up every client to demonstrate to insurance claims adjusters, defense attorneys, and juries that people are entitled to full compensation for wrongfully caused physical pain, mental anguish, impairment, disfigurement, loss of earnings, and medical expenses.

There is nothing more satisfying to me then when my clients receive their settlement or judgment, and we shake hands for the final time. Do you live in Great Barrington or elsewhere in the Berkshires of MA? I look forward to the opportunity to help you with your personal injury claim. If you want to get to know me and understand my expertise, follow me on Facebook @Berkshiretriallawyer. You can call me at (413) 429-6400 or email me at scott@scottsaneslaw.com. I want to be your personal injury trial lawyer in the Berkshires.

If you have suffered an injury in a car accident in Great Barrington MA or anywhere in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, you may be undecided as to whether you should talk to a car accident lawyer – a personal injury lawyer. You might think that your automobile accident injuries are not THAT severe – that you don’t really need a personal injury lawyer. There’s a big difference in the results you’ll get if you have an experienced personal injury attorney represent you against insurance companies.

Recently I had a couple come into my Great Barrington office. They told me about their car accident – a collision in Becket, Massachusetts – and their car accident insurance claim. The insurance company was only offering them a total package of $8,000 to settle the case. After finding out that the young woman driver who had struck them had dropped her cell phone and was reaching down to pick it up when she crossed the center line, we were able to go to arbitration and get $35,000 – over four times what the insurance company had originally offered.

Here’s how it works. There are two parts to every personal injury claim and that’s true of automobile accidents: 1. Liability and 2. Damages.

The first part is liability. In other words: whose fault is it? In order for you to recover for personal injury damages, it has to be somebody else’s negligence that caused your injuries.

Personal injury lawyers establish liability in several ways.

  1. You’re an expert driver: you’ve been driving all of your adult life! As a result you can testify as to what happened.
  2. There will also be the defendant who will be cross-examined.
  3. There might be witnesses and an investigating police officer who were at the scene.
  4. Circumstantial evidence will be supplied by the nature and extent of property damage, the weather, the condition of the roadway, all will come into play.

Our goal is to establish as much liability as possible against the defendant driver so his or her insurance company realizes the need to compensate you for your injuries. Remember … right now the insurance company is investigating to mitigate its insured’s responsibility. You need a lawyer to protect your interests as soon as possible.

The second part of every personal injury case is the damages aspect. You’re entitled to recover for all of the legal elements of damages under Massachusetts’ law. Those damages include past and future physical pain, mental anguish, physical impairment, physical disfigurement, your medical expenses, and lost earnings and the capacity to earn in the future.

As soon as you are in a car accident, the defendant’s insurance company is out there doing their job: interviewing witnesses, investigating the collision, and trying to establish that it wasn’t the fault of their driver that this crash happened. They’re investigating YOU. They may have a camera on you – watching your everyday activities in your home, in your yard – to see if you’re still cutting the lawn or lifting grocery bags. They will watch your social media. You need to be protected!

If you are ever injured, I want you to be able to concentrate on recovering and getting back to your daily activities. I’ll concentrate on getting you compensated. Let’s talk about how I can help you and your family. Call me at (413) 429-6400 or email me to set up a totally free consultation.

If you were hurt because of someone’s neglect, you probably have concerns and questions. I’m here for you! Subscribe for short videos and articles explaining personal injury law. I want to educate you about the process of personal injury claims. I’m the only personal injury lawyer in the Berkshires of Massachusetts with 30 plus years of deep experience in questioning jurors during jury selection – a vital component for winning cases. I am proud to be a car accident and medical malpractice expert, having represented thousands of clients. You can call me at 413-429-6400 and e-mail at scott@scottsaneslaw.com. #personalinjury #lawyer #Berkshires #intheberkshires #greatbarringtonma