Assessing Lost Wages and Loss of Wage Earning Capacity For

While attorneys, alongside insurance adjusters, most often make referrals themselves, on an occasional basis Rehabilitation Counselors may be required to evaluate lost wages and loss of wage earning capacity for attorneys that have been injured in the scope of a motor vehicle accident, chemical exposure, product liability, or other circumstances. While traditional evaluations offer the opportunity to evaluate pre-accident and post-accident wages using set wages, attorneys do not offer the same allowance, considering attorney salaries are based on a variety of contingencies, such as settlement amounts, alongside bonuses. Additionally, attorneys work in a sedentary capacity, as opposed to medium or heavy duty capacity, typified of many plaintiffs. As such, novel approaches must be utilized to evaluate lost wages for attorneys. This article adch- esses the need to evaluate probable wages; consider work life expectancy with identified modifiers; evaluate probable loss of earnings, with the supposition that a client would lose variable years of work life expectancy, as a result of the noted accident or circumstance; and address a proposal that work life may be expected decrease with injury or disability, through referenced literature.