South Carolina Consumer Protection and Personal Injury Lawyer
Attorney E. Vernon F. Glenn, Esquire, our firm’s founder, has been fighting to protect consumers and personal injury victims for over thirty years. Not only is Vernon Glenn esteemed by his legal colleagues throughout North and South Carolina, his advice and counsel has been sought by doctors at Harvard’s School of Medicine and the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging. Mr. Glenn has developed relationships with a wide variety of medical professionals, forming a network he can call upon whenever he needs an expert. When your future depends on an accurate assessment of your long-term costs and consequences, Mr. Glenn has the resources to make that analysis.
E. Vernon F. Glenn is one of only 21 board-certified civil trial lawyers in South Carolina. This certification is awarded by the National Board of Trial Advocacy based on qualifications, accomplishments, trial experience, and a written examination.
Unfortunately, "train wrecks" sometimes visit our families and you may need an attorney like me to help sort them out.
The Law Offices of E. Vernon F. Glenn, where we treat clients like family
The best endorsement any lawyer can have is the respect and regard of his or her individual clients. At the Law Offices of E. Vernon F. Glenn, whether they have been involved in a car accident, are worried about a loved one in a nursing home, or have lost a family member because of a medical error, our clients are treated like family.
We offer a free initial case review and, in most instances, personal injury cases are taken on a contingency fee basis. That means there are no legal fees unless we recover damages on your behalf. contact us to learn how we can help you.
Our law firm provides legal representation in most personal injury practice areas, such as car accidents, medical malpractice, and premises liability. Our clients come to us from South Carolina and throughout the southeastern United States, including North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
If you have suffered injuries due to an auto accident and need an attorney to represent you, or if you were injured in a slip-and-fall accident, the Law Offices of E. Vernon F. Glenn can provide you with quality legal representation on a contingency-fee basis. contact us through this web site or call us toll-free at 866-652-3834 for help.
If You Have a Case, A Good Lawyer Can Tell You But Then, WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
Here are 40 Steps along the way in the Life of Your Personal Injury Case
1) You visit with a lawyer, and after checking him and his practice and office out to your complete satisfaction, you retain his services. How do you do that?
2) You will sign a Retainer Agreement which lays out your lawyer’s duties and responsibilities and also yours as well. It will explain the fee to be charged, how expenses are to be handled and what each person’s rights and responsibilities are in the Case’s relationship.
3) It is your Contract with your lawyer and you should have a copy of it once it is signed and executed.
4) Most Personal Injury lawyers do not charge by the hour but rather charge fees on a contingent fee basis. What is a contingent fee? That means that your lawyer is paid ONLY when he successfully gets a sum of money for you for your injuries. So many cases (Not all, but a lot) take an awful lot of time, sometimes as many as four or five years and your lawyer will spend hours and hours many months and sometimes years working on your case. Most folks cannot afford to pay a lawyer by the hour and so the contingent fee is used. That’s why many of the highest state and federal courts in the land have characterized the contingent fee as the “Poor Man’s Keys To The Courthouse.” It is a great leveler for folks so they can have their day in court if need be.
5) It pays the lawyer a percentage of the sum of money gained for his client. I also call it a Performance Fee; i.e., the lawyer does not get paid until he Performs for his client’s interest. These percentages generally run a range from 20% to 40% depending on the type of case, its projected timetable and its complexity. Your lawyer should thoroughly discuss this with you. Be careful that your prospective lawyer makes no promises or outlandish guarantees to you other than his pledge to try to use his learned skills and best judgement and hard, hard work on your behalf.
6) Also, there will be EXPENSES or COSTS ADVANCED in your case. What are these? Well, think of your lawyer as a ‘Car’ taking your case to a place you want it to go and the expenses/costs as the ‘Gas’ that helps run the engine of the ‘car’. Good, experienced lawyers should always explain to their clients that credentials, brainpower and hard work are all important but other tools are necessary to build the strongest case possible for the best results. In our office, we almost always (but not all the time) advance funds for our clients interests on an very, very broad array of very necessary costs and expenses such as: accident and police reports, private detectives, medical and hospital records, aerial photography, blueprints and diagrams, real estate and property and asset ownership searches, meetings and consultations with treating physicians, laboratory testing, records and document retrieval, legal research on novel or difficult issues, travel, videography, depositions and statements taken by court reporters, expert/consulting witness reviews, document enlargement, exhibit and model creation, special supplies as specifically needed for a particular case, medical devices and equipment, medical and professional text purchases, extensive copying needs and all whole host of other things that will come to mind when needed.
7) These costs are important and necessary and can often be very expensive (Example: Large, voluminous medical record $500-$800+, Example: Private Detectives: $100 per hour, Example: Expert Medical Consulting Witness: $750 an hour!) so you can see how these can mount up. A good lawyer should be able to carry these expenses on his client’s behalf. Ask and make sure your case isn’t being handled on “The Cheap”.
8) Your lawyer will be repaid his itemized Costs Advanced at your case’s conclusion along with whatever agreed-upon fees are due and owing.
9) For your information, our office has outstanding expenditures ongoing at any given time of between $50,000 and $100,000 on all the different cases we are working on. We DO NOT CHARGE ANY INTEREST on these outstanding loans we make on each of our client’s cases. At our office, we say we run a Personal Injury Law Office and also, The Friendly Bank of Vernon!
10) As you can see, it is so important that you have an experienced and successful lawyer evaluating and taking care of your case. And too, this is very important: All this talk that the politicians and insurance companies and corporations spew out about “frivolous lawsuits” is nonsense. Bringing a claim and a case is expensive and serious and time-consuming business and good lawyers do not fool or mess around with cases that have no opportunity or real probability of success; to do such a thing in my opinion would be unethical, unfair and downright stupid and it cheats the client who is given an unrealistic and wasteful expectation.
11) So, you’ve hired a lawyer and executed a proper contract for services, fees and costs. What’s next?
12) Your lawyer and his staff will begin to gather all the facts and information that’s out there to be gotten. You’ll be interviewed, your family too, along with witnesses and any investigators such as law enforcement. Pictures will the be taken, the scene will be inspected and studied. Records and bills and documents will be ordered. Your file will begin to grow.
13) The party or company or person that injured you will be contacted, usually by registered mail letter and put on notice of your claim. They will be instructed to have their insurance company or representative get in touch with your lawyer in a reasonable amount of time, usually between 14 and 28 days.
14) Once the insurance carrier is in touch with your lawyer, your file will be expanded and grown to include every pertinent fact and document and record necessary to validate your claim. These will then be properly and comprehensively and professionally assembled and presented to the insurance carrier’s adjuster.
15) This process often takes many, many months and it is important that it be thorough and without displayed impatience; we understand the passage of time is frustrating when you’ve been hurt and damaged, but if we show impatience, insurance companies recognize that as a clear sign of softness and eagerness to settle and will begin to apply discounts to your claim, thus cheapening your case.
16) What do we have to show them on your behalf: THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY AND UNDERSTAND COMPLETELY.
17) Your personal injury case has TWO PARTS, both of which must be made full in order to maximize your potential recovery.
18) First is Liability or Wrongdoing. We must show that the party that hurt you was significantly at fault. And if the party’s conduct or actions were particularly reckless This is where study and investigation and analysis by your lawyer so often plays such an important role.
19) Second are Damages. We must show all your damages and be able to document or justify everything that is claimed. From medical bills to lost wages to lost companionship to pain and suffering to disfigurement, scarring and permanent injury and disruption and compromise of lifestyle. Once again, this is where the sophistication and expertise and creativity of presentation of your experience lawyer’s office is so important.
20) Once your case, in its entirety, is presented to the other side’s insurance carrier, they will review same and quite often, negotiations will begin as to what a proper value is for the case. We always present a demand for money damages that is considerably HIGHER than our studied appraisal of your case because, since the beginning of time, no insurance carrier has ever done anything but offer a sum that is ridiculously LOWER than their valuation of your case. Thus begins the push and pull and tug and struggle to place a fair value of your injuries.
21) How do we achieve the results we have in these matters? We are respected, have earned our reputations by showing the insurance companies that we can take cases to the courthouse and try them effectively and get proper verdicts for our clients. Thus, look for a Courthouse Veteran. The insurance companies know who we are and they also know those who are not. It makes a BIG DIFFERENCE in how cases are valued.
22) Most cases get settled, but the process takes time and again, we ask for your help and your patience. We confer with you, keep you posted with what’s going on and seek your input and comment.
23) An important note about communication between lawyers and clients. In our office, we always ask our clients to call us with whatever is on their minds. We need and want to know what you are thinking and so often, your thoughts help us create new or stronger approaches on your behalf. As good as we are, we are not mind readers so we value your active communication with us. Of course, it may take a day or two (hopefully not!) before we can get back to you but we always will. I always tell folks that why we have multiple phone lines going out AND coming in! Call us!
24) Also, an important note about the ‘smaller’ case: We handle these too and do so enthusiastically. As with all our clients, we are open, honest and candid with them about the totality of their case and if there is a way to help, we want to do it. But, we do not lead our friends and clients down “The Primrose Path” and have them believe that we can make “a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”; this is one of my biggest complaints with the aggressive TV advertising lawyers: They want as many cases as they can get their hands on and their too loud, gimmicky, screaming sales pitches make unreasonable assurances like, “We’ll take care of everything!”and “We’ll get you what you deserve!” We simply will not over-promise, over-sell, over-hype any client’s case or prospects. Again, I find this sort of thing trashy, unprofessional, unethical and shamefully embarrassing. We just say “NO!!!” to that kind of conduct.
25) Now, if your case gets settled, the money will be sent, your fees and expenses will be paid, any outstanding medical bills and the like will be taken care of or addressed and you will receive the net proceeds, always in the form of our office’s Trust Account check. Almost always, this money is TAX FREE. You do not pay taxes on proceeds received from physical injury. We always encourage you to be careful and prudent with this money and hope and trust you will. You will sign documents, called Releases, that signify you are dropping your pursuit of your claim in return for the money received.
26) Then, the case is over and while we hope you will stay in touch with us and refer others to us because you were pleased with our services, we earnestly hope we never have to help you again on an injury claim. We want you to be safe and stay safe out there!
27) BUT, what if the insurance company doesn’t want to resolve your case or wants to stall and stall and stall or declares that they don’t think your case has the value we feel it has. Well, in that case, we go to very formal action.
28) We file a lawsuit in the proper courthouse and serve it on the offending parties. In those papers will be contained our specific allegations of wrongdoing against the hurting and offending parties along with our claim for recovery and payment of money damages and a request for a Jury Trial.
29) From the time of filing the suit, you can generally expect a year to two years before the matter arrives at trial in the courthouse. What happens along the way?
30) Generally, the suit-called a COMPLAINT-is responded to by a lawyer representing the interests of the party sued and their insurance carrier. This is called the ANSWER. It is usually received with 30 to 60 days of the filing of the COMPLAINT .(I am always amused by the fact that the assigned insurance company defense lawyer has the more rotten than not task of serving two masters-his client’s interests and those of the insurance company paying him. Lots of times, those two masters have very differing goals and interests and the defense lawyer walks a tightrope. It often makes for a rather confused and messy situation but they chose to do that kind of work so too bad for them. They get paid by the hour, have large offices and big copy machines and lots of paralegals and assistants and must bill many, many hours to justify their continued importance and worth in their selected world. UGH!)
31) After the ANSWER is received, then there is generally a Five Part Process that takes place over time that leads to the courthouse. Now, cases do get settled at many points along the way, but usually, most if not all of these Five Parts have to be completed before there can be resolution before trial.
32) Part One: WRITTEN DISCOVERY: Each side sends written questions and requests for production of documents, records, photographs and the like to the other side. These are answered and returned and obviously, studied and analysed. This process generally takes around 120-180 days. As you can see, 8 months or so have passed since the suit formally started.
33) Part Two: DEPOSITIONS OF PARTIES AND FACT WITNESSES: A deposition is a sworn statement, taken down and transcribed by a Court Reporter, that is comprised of questions and answers between lawyers and parties and other witnesses. Almost all depositions take place in lawyer’s offices but they are assigned the same solemnity as though they were being held in a courthouse with a Judge presiding. They are very, very important and when your deposition is to be taken , your lawyer will prepare you for what to expect. My best rough calculation is that in the 30 years I’ve been a personal injury trial lawyer, I’ve participated in well over a THOUSAND depositions and God willing and the creek don’t rise, I expect I’ve got more than a few hundred more out there in my future. Besides the parties to the lawsuit being questioned, such others as police, treating doctors and witnesses to events get questioned top. Oh, by the way, please do not expect the dramatic fireworks and jumping up and down and hollering you see on TV shows. Almost all and I mean ALL depositions are taken in an atmosphere of politeness and good manners. There may be disagreements or disputes but they are handled by good lawyers professionally and with true civility. WATCH OUT: If your prospective lawyer wants to argue with the other side about everything, act like a horse’s rear end, beat on his chest and tells you he’s the meanest, toughest tiger in the jungle, be very, very careful. He can absolutely poison your case and wreck your chances.
34) Part Three: DEPOSITIONS OF EXPERTS: Sometimes a case warrants the investigation and participation of Expert Witnesses. (This is always true in Medical Malpractice cases and you’ll see in here where I’ve offered a special presentation on those particular matters; they are “Creatures Unto Themselves”.) Such Expert Witnesses might be doctors who have been asked to independently review one side or another’s position, highway engineers, accident reconstructionists, care planners, mechanical engineers, biomechanical engineers or even auto mechanics and body shop repair folk. In South Carolina, our highest courts have ruled that an ‘expert’ is anyone who can really inform a jury of lay people about something they have exceptional expertise and knowledge in or with that those jurors don’t have; thus, medicine, engineering, dynamics of how a wreck occurred, damage to vehicles, analysis of skid marks all may have expert testimony necessarily attached to their presentation.
35) Part Four: What I call: GENERAL and SPECIFIC HOUSEKEEPING: All cases, once they get to this stage, have loose ends, things that need to be further explored, addressed, investigated, looked into. This may entail a few more depositions, conferences, some more analysis or something else. Each case is different and each case always needs some “tightening up” at this time.
36) Part Five: This part is happening more and more these days. This is called: ADR or ALTERNATIVE DISPUTE RESOLUTION. Most of the times, this is in the form of MEDIATION. By this time, each side has a pretty good idea of what the case is about, what the positions of each side are, how strong or weak liability is, the scope of damages claimed and other factors such as backgrounds of parties, strength and/or weakness of various witnesses and many, many other intangible factors. If your lawyer has been able to properly put your case together, you may very well find yourself in a mediation. Usually, both sides agree upon an impartial, effective and neutral third party with whom all parties and lawyers gather and together, there is a joined effort at negotiation and settlement of the case. This kind of meeting usually takes about a day and involves each side laying out its positions and then the mediator working with both sides, back and forth, trying to bring the sides together. These are extremely helpful exercises and are usually successful. They are voluntarily participated in though we are definitely heading towards a time where our Courts will order such participation in many types of cases.
37) Remember again, this is why is so important at the beginning, on the front end, at the start to find and hire the lawyer who knows how to evaluate and size up your case. After thirty years, I am more and more prone to think of that as “an art”. It is a gift and an acquired skill.
38) But, what if all this DOES NOT get your case resolved and settled? Then, we go to the courthouse and have a TRIAL.
39) Well, what is a TRIAL?
40) It is what you see on TV but generally, it’s much more dignified, more formal, surely much longer than an hour in prime time and there are no commercials. It is an intricate yet straightforward presentation of your case and the presentation of the other side’s case to a jury before a presiding judge. Jury trial is the great, glorious, sacred keystone of our American system of justice. She is our lodestar and in my mind, our most effective defense and bulwark against citizen mistreatment. She is the filter through which we seek civilized fairness for regular folks, regular individual citizens and families like yours. Complete access to complete trial by jury must be protected and nurtured. (CHURCHILL QUOTE) (NEAL QUOTE). And because Jury Trial is so very important, I am going to present here another section devoted entirely to it.
JURY TRIAL: THE ULTIMATE ‘TAYC’
I beg your pardon. ‘TAYC’? What in the world are you talking about?
Well. Something very, very serious and very, very important.
The following story explains all:
My first law partner Terry Crumpler bills his clients by the hour. Thus, if he does 25 hours of work and his rate is $200 an hour (Actually Folks, It’s a LOT MORE!), then his bill is 25 x 200 or $5,000. He works for large real estate developers and real estate investment trusts and also publicly listed companies and corporations; they can pay the freight. After about 10 years of practicing which was about the time he’d gotten really seasoned in his work, he started adding 5% extra to every bill. So his $5,000 bill was increased 5% or by $250 for a total of $5,250. That extra 5% has always been billed as ‘TAYC’. It means: Thinking About Your Case. Good lawyers think about your case when they wake up in the middle of the night, when they’re in the shower, when they’re talking a walk, taking out the garbage, mowing the grass, when they’re at the movies and yes, when they’re in bathroom and surely, when they’re in church. Good lawyers think about your case all the time in every place imaginable and what they’re thinking about is its strengths and weaknesses, where the problems are, what needs to be done and how to best fit all the pieces together to best tell your story and a Trial approaches, the TAYC picks up speed and volume and urgency. Most cases are resolved one way or another before Trial happens. The great, great majority are worked out by settlement, compromise and sometimes, unfortunately if all the necessary marks can’t be hit, but dismissal. My personal experience is that less than 2-3% of my cases are tried before a jury. Time from beginning to end can range from about a year to three-plus years. The Charleston County Clerk’s office has had an average of ___ cases filed in the last three years, an average of ___tried over the past three years so you can see the numbers are within striking range of one another.
Still, some do get tried and this is generally how it goes:
(Keep in mind that before you and your lawyer go to the courthouse on that fateful day, an awful lot of work has already been done. Briefs have been researched and written. Pertinent case law pulled. Exhibits created and marked. Witness questions, both direct and cross-examination, have been prepared. Depositions broken down. An enormous effort is being expended in our office, very much like battle-planning from A to Z, strategy, tactics, alternate plans, all are in the works. And none of it would ever make one minute of prime-time television because to just about everyone, except those of us that do this, it is boring, it is drudgery, it is nothing more than reading and thinking and preparing. And it is CRUCIAL.)
1) The assigned Judge will have a pre-trial meeting to discuss the case with all counsel, discuss the issues, any motions pending and any other matter that need judicial housekeeping.
2) Jury lists are available and good lawyers review them, trying to figure out which jurors they’d like to have and which ones they’d like to see go away.
3) The Judge introduces everyone to the jury pool and begins to whittle them down to your case’s group, using his questions and questions each side asks him to ask of the assembled number.
4) You’re given 20 to work with. Taking turns, each side uses 4 ‘strikes’. We knock off one, they knock off one until we’re left with 12. That’s your jury. (The same technique is used to get alternates too.)
5) The Judge swears them in and gives some basic information about trial proceedings and your case in particular.
6) Then come Opening Statements by lawyers on each side. These are not “Jury Argument” but are supposed to be factual, non-argumentative statements of the facts and the issues making up each side’s case.
7) Then the plaintiff (that’s you) starts putting on witnesses and presenting your case. The defense will cross-examine after each direct examination. At some point, the plaintiff will rest his case.
8) There will then be motions from the defense trying to get your case tossed out because it didn’t have the exact ‘A, B or C’, the certain required elements that the law requires.
9) In negligence and personal injury cases, those generally are: duty and breach of duty leading to injury and damage and that the injury claimed is directly related to the breach of duty.
10) If you get by those defense motions, then they start putting up witnesses and we start cross-examining them after their direct testimony is over.
11) Once they rest, there will be more motions.
12) Then it is time for Closing Argument and this is where we argue the entire case before the jury.
13) Then the Judge charges the jury with the law that applies to the case at hand and gives them their instructions for deliberation.
14) And they go out, go out to a jury room and they decide.
15) And it is all very nerve-wracking.
16) Most juries make decisions. Some get “hung” and then the case has to be retried.
17) If the jury finds for you, then they’ll award a sum of money for your injuries.
18) If they find for the defense, there will be no award.
19) Generally, any losing side can appeal to the Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court but they can only argue errors of law, not the facts, on appeal.
As you can see, it is a long and difficult road.
And that’s why it is so important to have a lawyer who has walked it before and has the patience and judgment and savy and skills and smarts to stay the course and give you the best chance to be successful.
No lawyer can promise a result. An experienced, proven lawyer can promise you an edge. That’s important.
And for God’s sake, if you find a lawyer who says they’ve never lost, they have only had one trial or they’re not being straight with you. ALL good lawyers have won and lost, been victorious and been defeated. You have to walk in the fire and battle in the arena to become stronger. There is no other way.
Is this system perfect? Certainly not. Does it work every time? No. Can it be improved upon? Yes. Is that going on? Yes, it has been from the birth of this nation. Is it a good system and a system that strives to be fair? Yes!
I leave you with two quotes, all of which I truly believe in. I’ve had my share of bitter and sweet and I have no doubt as to the basic fairness and equity of our system of trial by jury. If only all the rest of the world would let their citizens have such liberty. It would make a huge, meaningful difference.
“Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?”
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”
THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1788
The Law Offices of E. Vernon F. Glenn
211 Scott Street
Mount Pleasant, SC 29464
Phone: 843-971-1999
Fax: 843-971-0194
Toll-Free: 866-652-3834
E-mail: Contact Us
Proudly serving clients in Mt. Pleasant, Charleston, Piedmont, Hilton Head, Myrtle Beach, and throughout South Carolina, as well as North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee
