Advocating for the Brain-Injured Individual

A Step-by-Step Approach to Navigating the Insurance Maze and to Obtaining Justice for the Brain-Injured Survivor and His or Her Family

By Richard Bogoroch November 2, 2005

It is a great honour to represent brain-injured individuals and their families and to help them live a better life. Catastrophic injury cases and serious brain injury cases, in particular, present unique challenges to the legal, medical, and rehabilitation team. As a lawyer with over 20 years’ experience in representing brain-injured individuals and their families, I hope that my comments will lend a helping hand to those who care for a brain-injured individual. In offering you comments today, I approach my task humbly and with a full realization that no one, not any lawyer, case manager, physician, occupational therapist, or physiotherapist will ever know what a brain-injured victim and their family experiences or can ever endure what they endure. All we can do is strive to emulate their courage. What follows below are my observations, impressions, and experience in seeking justice for brain-injured individuals and their families. My topic will focus both on the tort system and on obtaining and accessing statutory accident benefits.

The key questions that family members of brain-injured individuals have are as follows:

1. What compensation am I entitled to and how long will it take to settle my case?
2. What funds are available as the tort case makes its way through the litigation process? (e.g. How can we live on $400.00 a week and how can our legal team improve our quality of life?)
3. What is the role of the lawyer? (i.e. empowering the brain-injured individual and his family)
4. What accident benefits are we entitled to?

For the full article, click to download: Advocating for the Brain-Injured Individual