Brain Injury & Legal Support: Why Timing Matters

Brain Injury is an invisible injury. Its impact cannot always be seen by family, friends, doctors, lawyers, or insurance companies; and these injuries can be dramatically different from one person to the next.

While Brain Injury Awareness Month is in June in Canada, it’s in March in the U.S.A., with March 4^th as the day to recognize the challenges of an invisible injury. It’s so important to us at Thomson Rogers LLP, that it’s worth writing about twice. Family, friends, and caregivers play a vital role in supporting a person with a brain injury, both in daily life and legal disputes and the more people know how to help, the better.

Those with a brain injury caused by a traumatic event need to secure legal representation as early as possible with a trauma-informed and traumatic brain injury-informed lawyer, and here are some reasons why:

1. There are benefits and claims that can be applied immediately to assist the injured person, especially in the first two years post-injury. This is when many clients suffer a brain “fog” while recovering and have trouble engaging in the world again or in coming to terms with their loss of self. A brain-injured person needs to surround themselves with experts who have an understanding of brain injury and/or lived experience.
2. Lawyers can provide information and connections to community associations and service providers who are informed about brain injury to assist in recovery and establishing a new life with dignity.
3. To help educate family members and friends by bringing awareness that brain injuries impact people in many different degrees and in many different ways. You can meet someone who “looks normal” but who is suffering in extreme ways. It is often those closest to us that have the hardest time understanding the impact.
4. To ensure that those family members – if entitled – get access to benefits to assist in the care of a brain-injured person.
5. To ensure from the start that legal cases and insurance disputes are being advanced both with the insurance company and against any at-fault persons without delay so that the case is handled effectively and as quickly as possible in an often slow-moving process.
6. To properly show the hidden impact of brain injury in a legal context.
7. To ensure any legal requirements are satisfied in relation to guardianships, capacity issues, and court approvals that can be required when bringing a lawsuit.

Education in a legal proceeding or an insurance dispute brings a more level playing field and increases access to justice. As lawyers for injured clients with brain injury, our focus at Thomson Rogers LLP is to bring awareness to insurance companies and insurance adjusters who may not have experience with brain injury. Additionally, we want to remind those who have of the impact these injuries have on the people who suffer from them and those around them.

The most helpful thing one can do if they are close to an individual with brain injury is to allow them to share their story with you and to feel honoured if they are comfortable sharing their story with you. This allows the brain-injured person to feel empowered and have control over their own narrative. It allows them to make the invisible, visible.

---

Matthew Sutton is a Personal Injury Lawyer and Partner at Thomson Rogers LLP. Matthew can be reached at 416-868-3187 or by email.