After your child suffers a birth injury, you have to deal with a lot – time in the NICU, medical appointments, therapies, and dealing with your own feelings about what happened. In the midst of all of this, it can seem impossible to find a lawyer that you can trust to handle a medical negligence claim.
If your child has suffered a birth injury due to medical malpractice, filing a claim against the at-fault healthcare provider can provide the financial stability that you need to help them thrive. The key is often finding a skilled birth injury lawyer who can take on the medical establishment to secure a favorable outcome. There are certain questions that you can ask to find a trusted birth injury lawyer to handle your claim.
At BILA, we are committed to providing the highest quality legal representation to families throughout Canada. We know that choosing a birth injury lawyer can be hard, which is why we offer free initial consultations so that you can get to know a lawyer and decide if they’re the right person to represent you in your claim. Reach out today to talk to a birth injury lawyer in your province.
How Can I Find a Good Birth Injury Lawyer?
While there is no shortage of lawyers in every town across Canada, it can be difficult to know how to find the right lawyer for your child’s case. The starting point is that every child should have the benefit of having his or her rights protected.
In the case of birth injury, it is important to have a lawyer on your child’s side who has the experience and resources necessary to effectively advocate for your child’s best interest. While it is always preferable to work with a lawyer who has relevant experience in the area you need help with, this is particularly important in birth injury cases.
First, your child only has one opportunity to obtain full and fair compensation for his or her lifetime for injuries caused by medical negligence. Second, birth injury lawsuits are defended by highly experienced defence lawyers so it is important to level the playing field by having your child’s rights represented by an equally experienced lawyer. Third, birth injury cases are unique and often involve complicated questions of fact related to the proper standard of care for obstetricians and gynecologists.
In the field of birth injury, the playing field is far from level. Physicians in Canada are represented by an organization called the Canadian Medical Protective Association (CMPA), a highly sophisticated and well-funded organization. Its mission statement includes “protecting the professional integrity of physicians,” and they defend these physicians vigorously.
A quick glance at the CMPA’s annual reports reveals high success rates for physicians successfully defending claims brought against them for medical negligence. While not published, hospital insurance programs across Canada also have good rates of successfully defending actions brought against hospitals and nurses.
BILA lawyers will handle your case in a way that improves the odds of success. Importantly, these statistics do not reflect the experience of BILA lawyers. BILA lawyers have a track record of success in representing victims of medical malpractice, particularly children with birth injuries.
There can be no doubt that the CMPA is a formidable foe, with many advantages in its favour. BILA lawyers, however, are committed to creating a level playing field. We do so through our experience, hard work, and collaboration. We share knowledge, resources, and information amongst our alliance of lawyers across Canada. We develop strategies and work together to advance the law in the areas where we perceive unfairness to children living with cerebral palsy and other birth trauma injuries. We have dedicated our professional careers to learning the highly specialized law and medicine involved in birth injury cases and building a network of medical experts prepared to give the type of objective, unbiased opinions necessary to succeed with these cases.
While BILA lawyers have a lot of experience in handling birth trauma cases like yours, the collaboration between BILA lawyers across Canada provides access to the depth of experience that may not be available elsewhere.
Finding the Right Birth Injury Lawyer to Handle Your Child’s Claim
When you are looking for the most capable and experienced lawyer to handle your child’s case, there are some important questions you should ask.
- How many birth trauma cases have you handled?
- BILA lawyers, collectively, have handled hundreds of birth injury lawsuits..
- How do you keep up with the latest developments in obstetrics, neuroradiology, and neonatology?
- BILA lawyers attend and speak at conferences on these issues regularly. BILA lawyers also maintain an extensive library on these subjects.
- Have you taken a birth trauma case to trial? What is your success rate at trial?
- BILA lawyers have taken many of these cases to trial, including leading cases at the Supreme Court of Canada.
- How are you going to access the experienced medical experts needed to prove my case?
- BILA lawyers regularly deal with outstanding experts in all the important medical fields.
- Can you read and interpret what is in the hospital records and the fetal heart rate tracing?
- BILA lawyers have spent thousands of hours learning to read and interpret medical records and fetal heart tracings.
Your case is important. Don’t be afraid to ask any questions you wish and expect direct answers. Remember: you are the one who is making the hiring decision. You have a right to ask questions.
While BILA lawyers represent a wide range of medical malpractice victims, they have a particular interest in birth injury claims. All BILA lawyers have extensive, hands-on experience with birth injury litigation.
Interested in Pursuing a Birth Injury Claim? We Can Help.
In the aftermath of a birth injury diagnosis, your focus may primarily be on how you can help your child thrive. Finding a birth injury lawyer that you can trust can seem overwhelming, particularly when you are already dealing with so much.
BILA represents families in birth injury lawsuits across Canada. Our alliance of experienced, compassionate birth injury lawyers has decades of combined experience handling birth trauma claims – and a track record of success. If you are contemplating pursuing a birth injury lawsuit, give us a call at 1-800-300-BILA or fill out our online contact form to schedule a free initial consultation with a member of our legal team.
Resources:
- CMPA: https://www.cmpa-acpm.ca/en/home
- Supreme Court of Canada: https://www.scc-csc.ca/home-accueil/index-eng.aspx
The Birth Injury Lawyers’ Alliance of Canada (BILA) was formed in 2016 by a group of lawyers from across Canada with considerable experience in birth injury cases to promote the effective representation of children and families affected by avoidable injuries occurring at or around the time of birth.
