Medical Malpractice Case Timeline

Answer:

Here in the state of Arizona, our rules of practice and our rules of civil procedure and our Arizona revised statute has specific things that must occur in pursuing medical malpractice cases, about institutions and about doctors specifically. There’s certain prescribed courses of actions that must take place. Our statutes have rendered these courses of action to streamline some of the litigation processes. I say that to make the point simply that medical malpractice cases are some of the slowest moving cases through our court system because it involves a lot of information – volumes and volumes of medical records, a great number of expert witnesses that have to be reviewed. You’ve got a lot of busy people. Doctors are busy people. The experts are busy people. The lawyers are busy people. A lot of times these cases move very, very slow.

It’s also dependent on the facts associated with your case. How in depth is it? What was the actual deviation from the standard of care that is being addressed? You want to sit and talk with your lawyer. As you sit with that lawyer and map out the facts of your case and what’s going to be needed to successfully pursue those claims, he can give you a better idea – and again, it’s just an idea – of the amount of time that it will take to get through each phase of the case. You have to avoid letting anxiety get the best of you.

These cases take some time to get through court, but any wise lawyer will not make knee-jerk decisions and dismiss the case too early to where the value is diminished. They certainly won’t drag the case along and kick the can down the road because they understand that it’s you, the client, that has had to deal with this deviation from the standard of care. Have that talk with your lawyer. They’ll be able to help give you an idea of what it takes here in Arizona, as far as the time frame, to pursue the claims of your medical malpractice case.