A day in the life of a practicing attorney

[vambot5]

I had a mediation today on a pair of my cases, both with same claimant. I never get to do mediations. In case you aren't familiar, a mediation is basically a settlement negotiation with a neutral third-party helping out. Most of my work is on my boss John's cases, and for the important ones he will always do the mediations himself. For the rest,

Comments

[sholanda]

Sometimes I have a hard time understanding what you do, there's a lot of vocabulary involved. But this was explained very well. Good job being a Rock Star.

What is vocational rehab?

[vambot5]

Vocational rehabilitation is basically education/retraining for someone who is unable to return to their pre-injury employment. The judge will appoint a vocational counselor to examine the claimant, catalog his or her education, work experience, and job skills, administer some aptitude tests, etc. prepare a report with some possible retraining options. Usually there are three options, and the claimant always picks the most expensive option as a rule. This is usually an associates degree or certificate program at vo-tech.

If the court awards voc rehab, we actually pay for the program, we don't just give the claimant money for it. So in a case like this one, where the claimant doesn't really intend to go back to work, he doesn't really want to do the retraining and would rather just pocket a check instead.

[vambot5]

Sorry this reply was such a mess, I was trying to type it at work. If it doesn't make sense, I can explain further.