Medical malpractice lawsuits take a long time to resolve. Expect anywhere between 18 months and three years before seeing settlement money. Nashville Medical Malpractice Lawyer work through many stages before compensating injured patients. Each stage has its own requirements and delays that can’t really be avoided.
Initial investigation phase
Collecting medical records takes up the first few months. Lawyers have to request files from every single place that treated the patient. Hospitals, clinics, specialists, emergency rooms, all of them. This process alone eats up three to six months because medical facilities don’t move quickly when handing over records. A trusted medical malpractice lawyer in Nashville goes through these documents page by page, looking for mistakes in treatment.
Medical experts get involved once the records show up. They examine what doctors did versus what they should have done. Did the surgeon make an error? Did the medication dosage cause harm? Was the diagnosis delayed too long? Experts take weeks writing their reports because they have their own patients to see. Nothing moves forward until these specialists confirm that negligence happened and caused real damage.
Settlement negotiation period
Insurance companies protect doctors and hospitals from paying full amounts. Negotiations stretch out for six months to a year, sometimes longer when cases get messy. Defense teams attack every aspect of the claim. They question whether injuries are as bad as claimed. They blame patients for not following instructions. They argue that complications happen even with proper care.
Plaintiff lawyers fight back with numbers. Medical bills pile up quickly after malpractice, surgeries, medications, physical therapy, and lost paychecks. Future expenses matter too, especially when injuries cause permanent problems. First settlement offers almost always come in too low. Insurance adjusters hope victims will take quick money rather than wait years for more. Good attorneys know when to reject offers and when numbers get close to fair value.
Trial preparation requirements
Court preparation starts when settlement talks break down. This phase adds another six to twelve months of work:
- Deposing everyone involved, defendants, nurses, and other doctors who saw the patient
- Filing motions to keep out certain evidence or allow specific testimony
- Making charts and models that help juries grasp complicated medical procedures
- Booking expert witnesses months ahead because their schedules fill up fast
- Digging through older cases to find legal arguments that worked before
Court calendars stay packed year-round. A trial date gets set, then gets moved because another case ran over time. Judges get sick, attorneys have emergencies, and witnesses become unavailable. Some counties have it worse than others, depending on how many lawsuits are waiting.
Factors affecting timelines
Many things change how long cases actually take:
- Medical complexity – Rare diseases or unusual treatments need specialists who take longer to evaluate everything
- Injury severity – Brain damage or paralysis requires extensive projections about lifetime care costs
- Defendant cooperation – Some doctors and hospitals dig in their heels and refuse to admit fault
- Court availability – Big cities have crowded dockets that push trial dates back months
- Evidence disputes – Fights over what experts can say or what documents mean slow everything down
- Multiple defendants – When several doctors share blame, coordinating between all their lawyers drags things out
Cases where the fault is obvious might close in 12 to 18 months. Heavily fought cases with catastrophic injuries regularly take three to five years. Each situation brings its own problems that either speed things up or create more delays. Victims need to prepare for a long wait while their lawyers work to get full compensation for the harm caused by medical negligence.
