Choosing the Right Lawyer is No ACCIDENT- A Personal Injury Guide - By Jeff Adelman (2025 Edition)
If you are reading this, you likely have been injured as a result of a car accident or slipping or tripping on someone’s premises as a result of negligence. In the pages that follow, I will provide insight as to what you should expect from a lawyer (attorney) fighting on your behalf for personal injuries. This book is intended as a general guide if you are unfortunate to have had this happen to you. It has been with the least amount of “legalese” as possible, so you do not have to be a lawyer to understand it.
If you are reading this, you likely have been injured as a result of a car accident or slipping or tripping on someone’s premises as a result of negligence. In the pages that follow, I will provide insight as to what you should expect from a lawyer (attorney) fighting on your behalf for personal injuries. This book is intended as a general guide if you are unfortunate to have had this happen to you. It has been with the least amount of “legalese” as possible, so you do not have to be a lawyer to understand it.
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Choosing the Right Lawyer is No Accident
JURY SELECTION
Jury selection makes or breaks a case. It’s a fascinating psycho-logical
exercise.
A panel of six jurors in Florida decide a personal injury dispute. The
Court brings twenty to thirty people into the courtroom for a standard
personal injury case like a car accident. The attorneys begin the Voir
Dire, the jury selection process. But really, it’s a “jury de-selection”
process.
Attorneys try to determine through their multiple questions (that could
take hours, if not days, to complete) whether a potential juror is biased.
The attorneys want to know if potential jurors brought in by the Court
can be fair and impartial concerning the specific set of facts. A juror
might be able to sit and be fair and impartial for one type of case, but
possibly not on another. That’s what the jury selection process is all
about.
If bias is determined by one of the attorneys, there are two different ways
to remove someone from a jury panel. The first way is “striking for
cause.” If somebody flat-out says that they can’t be fair and impartial to
one of the parties, well, then that prospective juror should not be sitting
on the panel at the end of the day.
The other way is “peremptory challenges.” In Florida, each side gets
three peremptory challenges, meaning that the attorney can strike a
person for any reason, as long as it is not race-related. If, for example, a
potential juror is wearing a scowl on their face only when one attorney
is talking, but they haven’t said anything that would strike them off the
panel, that attorney might want to strike this person from the panel using
a peremptory challenge. Again, each side only gets three, and most
attorneys feel like they never have enough.
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Jeff Adelman, B.C.S., Esq.
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