The number one goal in a personal injury case is always to secure compensation for your client’s injuries to the fullest extent possible under the law. A secondary goal, however, is to ensure that dangerous products, business practices, and/or negligent conduct is corrected.

The General Motors litigation that has recently dominated the national news is a great example of this secondary goal of personal injury law. GM’s malfeasance with respect to hiding known defects in vehicles it produced was uncovered by Plaintiffs’ lawyers searching for answers as to why clients’ relatives were needlessly killed and/or seriously harmed. Eventually, through these individuals’ tireless efforts, it was revealed that GM hid known defects with the ignition switches of vehicles that cost people their lives.

In this instance, in addition to securing compensation for families harmed by GM’s reprehensible conduct, Plaintiffs’ lawyers’ work exposed GM’s completely improper actions and forced a recall of a plethora of unsafe, defective vehicles. This constituted a positive change for consumers and the public who were taken out of harms way of future accidents and potential serious injury.

Far too often personal injury attorneys are cast in a negative light. The insurance lobby rallies hard against lawyers who seek to hold individuals and corporations responsible for catastrophic injuries they cause others. It is extremely important that the public recognize that Plaintiffs’ lawyers fulfill a very important societal role in taking wrongdoers to account for improper conduct and seeking to have it corrected in the future. In this way, personal injury lawyers secure positive change for everyone.