Most law firms will reject your medical malpractice, nursing home, or sexual abuse case right off the bat unless the victim (you or a loved one) is dead or severely and permanently injured–not because your experience doesn’t matter, but because they’re focused on high-dollar outcomes that justify their overhead.
This law firm takes a more nuanced approach. True, I also consider the financial aspects of a case before jumping in. But I also consider whether a case can advance my mission, reinforce public standards of behavior, and deter future wrongful conduct, all while also getting compensation for the victim.
When analyzing any case that comes in, I begin with damages.
What Are Damages?
Damages are the money a victim gets as compensation for legal harm caused by another person or entity.
When a defendant injures a victim, he or she takes something from the victim:
- A perpetrator of sexual assault “takes” your bodily autonomy, dignity, and emotional security. Compensation aims to redress those profound personal invasions.
- A drunk or reckless driver who causes injury “takes” the victim’s health, time, ability to work, and perhaps their future earning capacity.
- A nursing home or hospital that neglects a vulnerable patient “takes” their safety, dignity, and health—sometimes even their life.
What Is Compensation?
Compensation is money paid to a victim to make good for the legal harm caused. It is our system’s answer to make up for a taking. It does not restore the status quo in the literal sense, but it places a monetary value on a victim’s loss and imposes it on the wrongdoer.
Compensation is NOT punishment. It is NOT awarded to advance this law firm’s mission or to punish the wrongdoer. It is meant to make you whole, to the extent money can do that.
What Is Legal Harm?
Legal harm includes bodily harm and emotional harm.
- Bodily harm is physical impairment of the human body like a wound, scar, injury, illness, disease, deformity, impairment of bodily function, and death.
- Emotional harm is any injury to your emotional tranquility. It includes fear, sadness, sorrow, anxiety, humiliation, depression (and other mental illnesses), and a host of other conditions and feelings–from mildly unpleasant to disabling.
There is no requirement that harm be major. If a physician delays diagnosing a minor fracture for four days, during which time you suffer unnecessary pain, that is a legal harm for which compensation is available. But if the fracture heals fully with no long-term complications, that temporary pain won’t garner much compensation without lasting impairment.
A lack of major harm means there will be less compensation at the end. Since law firms earn fees from the damages recovered, your case must involve enough compensation to make it worthwhile for both attorney and victim to pursue it further.
What Legal Harms Get Higher Compensation?
The more that is taken from the victim, the higher the compensation. Examples of high-compensation cases may include:
- Sexual assault leading to the victim developing severe, chronic PTSD or other mental condition with upsetting memories, nightmares, hypervigilance, substance abuse, and functional impairments (e.g., inability to work, maintain relationships, or care for children).
- The victim’s emotional tranquility is lost forever.
- Medical malpractice by misdiagnosis or surgical error leads to preventable wrongful death of a spouse, parent, or child.
- The victim (the surviving family) forever lost companionship, financial support, and funeral costs.
- Medical malpractice during childbirth causes the baby to have cerebral palsy or brain injury.
- The victims (baby and mother) lost their physical and emotional tranquility and now need lifelong medical care.
- Nursing home neglect leads to development of preventable pressure ulcers, which get infected and lead to sepsis in an elderly patient who never recovers.
- The victim lost her dignity, bodily integrity, and emotional tranquility while experiencing immense pain.
How Do You Evaluate My Case?
The practice of law at Hollingsworth PLLC is mission driven. Our goals include not just compensation. We seek structural change, access to justice, and raising the standard of care. At Hollingsworth PLLC, another law firm’s “marginal” case often has strategic value beyond its damages.
This does not mean we accept every case. But we have a wider embrace than just maximizing verdict size.
Fair and Transparent Fee Structures
Our fee structures are designed to keep legal representation accessible—especially in cases involving medical malpractice, nursing home negligence, or sexual abuse.
Instead of demanding large retainers or turning away all lower-dollar cases, in appropriate cases we charge a modest flat fee up front to cover the cost of:
- Investigating your claim
- Obtaining and reviewing your medical records, and
- Consulting with qualified medical or legal experts.
If suit is filed and we recover compensation for you, we offer our work on a reduced contingency basis, far lower than the 40% demanded by most firms in Virginia. If we investigate your case and determine it isn’t viable, you owe us nothing further.
I’ve built this practice to serve people, not just profit margins. This approach lets me take on cases other firms won’t—because your story, your harm, and your right to be heard still very much matter.
If you or someone you love has suffered harm and you’re not sure where to turn, contact Hollingsworth PLLC today for a straightforward, honest assessment of your legal options.