The personal injury lawyer practices in an area of the law known as torts. While all first year law students study the field of torts and have some basic knowledge of it, there is a select group that go on to become litigators.
Tort law represents perhaps the oldest form of codified jurisprudence. The Laws of Hammurabi, written down some 3500 years ago in what is present-day Iraq, were primarily about civil issues and personal injury. The Mosaic Code, sometimes known as the “traffic laws” of the ancient Hebrews, is another example. Current tort laws however have their roots in Anglo-Saxon England of the so-called “Dark Ages.” Persons who had been injured because of the negligence of others or who had suffered loss of property could bring their grievances to a local legislative body known as the folc-gemot, which in Modern English translates as “assembly.” As in today’s court rooms, the members of that assembly would hear both sides and render judgment. If the defendant was found liable for the plaintiff’s injury or loss, he was required to pay a sum of gold (known as weregild, or “man-price”) or surrender some portion of his lands to the aggrieved party.
Of course, today’s U.S.A. is a much more complex place than the England of King Aelfred’s time. The field of torts includes traffic accident injuries (which are the most frequent), product liability, medical malpractice, workplace accidents, and various types of negligence cases (for example, if a neighbor was keeping a toxic substance on his property that wound up making you sick).
There are also non-physical injuries that are covered under tort law. Harassment, mental cruelty and bullying and issues of libel and slander (when someone publishes or broadcasts something about you that is false and harms your reputation) are grounds for litigation. You will want to select a personal injury lawyer who has experience as well as a track record of success when it comes to dealing with cases that are similar to your own.