As disconcerting as it might be to suffer an injury that puts the brakes on the normalcy of daily living, the prospect of resolving your woes through insurance and legal webs may seem equally daunting. Thankfully, Eastern Idaho has a strong pool of legal experts to help you navigate the system. Some of the best and brightest can be found right here in town.
Established in 2007, the law firm of Smith Woolf Anderson and Wilkinson has offices in Idaho Falls as well as over the hill in Driggs. Earlier this spring, we had the opportunity to sit down with partners Curtis R. Smith and Dennis P. Wilkinson for insights into the firm and its key areas of specialty.
IFM: What are the main areas of law that you practice?
DW: We have a couple partners who do almost exclusively family law, and we also do some business work with a partner who does some construction law. Curtis does have some background in criminal law but together we do a fair amount of personal injury work. Primarily, the areas we work in are auto accidents and wrongful death. The firm also handles medical malpractice claims.
IFM: Are there specific areas that you are personally drawn to?
CS: All of the areas we practice are very interesting. With personal injury, it can be very complicated. You’re dealing with people whose lives have been turned upside down for one reason or another, such as a death or a surgery that didn’t go the way they needed it to. It really does have that human element. It is working with people who have really suffered some human tragedy in their lives.
DW: There’s a place for lawyers who represent corporations, and I respect that, but I think for both Curtis and I, we just really like having that one-to-one human contact with every client we work with.
CS: And they’re usually the neighbor next door, or the school teacher or the city worker — just run-of-the-mill people you meet in day-to-day life. That makes it more rewarding, knowing these are the people we get to serve. I think a lot of people who come in feel like they don’t have someone who’s on their side. They feel like they’re up against someone who’s big and powerful and has lots of money.
IFM: How do people know when it’s time to reach out to an attorney for personal injury claims?
CS: A lot of times when people think of personal injury, they may not know what that means. They may not know that it means someone’s negligence led to them being injured in some way. It’s interesting how a lot of times we meet with people who say, ‘Look, I’ve never sued anybody in my life. That seems intimidating to me and I don’t want to sue somebody.’ But the reality is if an insurance company maybe isn’t paying a claim or they have injuries because of somebody else’s negligence, they reach a point where they realize they don’t really have an option.
DW: In part, what we do is create options for people. I think a lot of times people come in thinking it’s a zero-sum game, that if I’m seeing a lawyer, I’m suing the other side. It doesn’t work like that. There are a lot of things that can be done to get a person back to where they need to be. It’s a big part of what we do.
IFM: What are some of the different aspects of personal injury cases that people should be aware of?
DW: When you look at a personal injury, there are different kinds of damage. There’s economic damage—those things we can put a dollar figure on. That could be medical bills, for example, or lost wages or pharmacy bills, broken glasses, the need for a wheelchair, crutches — whatever it may be. Economic damages are those things we can quantify. The law also allows for non-economic or general damages, and that includes pain suffering. Not just the pain a person feels in the months and the years following an accident, but it’s really looking at the effects on a person’s life, like not being able to get back to the same activities, not being able to sit without pain, not being able to do just simple household chores like doing the dishes without having to sit down for 5 minutes. It’s the time it takes away from your children or your spouse — it’s just a much broader category than what it seems.
CS: Here in our community we have a lot of hard working people, and one of the things that you find is that you might have someone who has worked their whole life for 30 years and all of the sudden, because of some injury they’ve experienced because of somebody else’s negligence, they find themselves not being able to get up and go to work every day, and there’s a cost of their lost wages because of that. But what you see is that a lot of times somebody who has spent their whole life with that kind of work ethic, all of the sudden they view themselves differently, like ‘I’m not worth anything anymore. I can’t get up and do what I’ve always done.’ It’s interesting what that mental scenario does to them. They’re hard workers. They don’t want to be in this situation but they’ve been put there through some terrible accident. It takes a toll, physically, mentally, everything. All those damages come into play.
IFM: How much control and collaboration should a client expect to have as their case moves forward?
DW: One thing people may not know when they come in is that it’s going to be a team approach. We have the experience to guide people through the decision making process but ultimately, the people we represent, we work for them. And ultimately the decisions that are made are theirs. We integrate the client into everything we’re doing. We want their input.
CS: We also work with a lot of great doctors and other medical professionals in town, so if you’re struggling with something specific, it’s rewarding to at least occasionally be able to say, ‘You know what, we may know a doctor who could help you with that issue.’ Our holistic approach is to help people get back to where they were as much as they can. It’s not just the litigation aspect.
IFM: What are the most rewarding aspects of the work you do?
DW: One thing I really like about this job is that it gives you the chance to be creative. It’s intellectually stimulating. You work with really good people, really smart people — judges, even defense lawyers on the other side.
Many of the clients we get to serve and work with, we get close to them. We become like family. Our relationship goes on throughout their life long after the case is over. You can’t help but get to know others in an intimate way because of their challenges.
CS: I’ve had the opportunity over the course of my career to work at other really good firms, and I’ve also worked as a solo practitioner. I felt that when we got this group together, it was having some common knowledge about what we liked and didn’t like about the profession from previous experience. We just have a really good group of attorneys here who really care about people and care about results. When you’re all on that level moving in the same direction, it makes your day-to-day very rewarding.
Click here to read the May issue of Idaho Falls Magazine.