Jacob Oresky-Interview

March 8, 1012
Attorney Jacob Oresky has focused his law practice exclusively on personal injury claims for nearly 25 years. His firm has obtained multimillion-dollar awards for many clients. Jacob Oresky has three offices in the New York City area, the Bronx, Manhattan, and Queens.
Get Legal: Mr. Oresky, does your practice focus exclusively on personal injury claims?
Jacob Oresky: The focus of our practice is to help people who have been injured in all types of accidents or who have been victims of the wrongful conduct of others. Our clients have been injured while working at construction sites, injured in automobile accidents, injured following a trip and fall on the sidewalk, staircase, and injured in many other types of accidents. Often our clients are no longer able to work and provide for their families following their accidents. They are not able to pay rent, utility bills, or care for their families due to their injuries. We will therefore immediately determine what potential sources of income are available to our clients to help meet their basic needs. For example, if our client was hurt on the job, we will help arrange for our client to receive any available workers’ compensation benefits. If our client was injured in an automobile accident, we will help our client obtain any available lost wage benefits from the No Fault insurance carrier as well as medical benefits. Our primary goal at the beginning of every case is to stabilize our clients’ living situation so they can focus on healing, while we thoroughly investigate and prepare their case for trial or settlement. From the moment we are retained, until the conclusion of the case we provide our clients with hard work and dedicated service in order to achieve the best possible results.
Get Legal: Tell us about your approach. How do you differ from other personal injury firms?
Jacob Oresky: We treat our clients the way we would want our family treated. That applies to even the simplest things. For example, we offer our clients a simple courtesy such as a cup of coffee, and will even accompany clients to appointments if they feel uncomfortable going alone. If clients bring their children to our office, we provide toys for their children to play with. We will arrange for transportation for our clients if necessary throughout every stage of their case with us. We will go to their home whenever necessary. We will do whatever we can to help our clients feel at ease throughout the entire litigation process. We are available to our clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Get Legal: What are the steps you take when handling a personal injury claim?
Jacob Oresky: I will always be a strong advocate for every client. I believe that thorough preparation and hard work wins a case. A common misperception in our society is that an attorney that speaks the loudest wins the case. In my experience, however, thoroughly preparing every case is the key to achieving the best possible results. Everyone in my firm is committed to working hard and taking all steps to prepare thoroughly every case. We follow every lead. We track down and interview every potential witness and take their statements. We evaluate every piece of evidence. We extensively prepare our clients for all important stages in their case. We will accompany our clients to necessary appointments during the course of litigation where others will not.
At my office, we begin working on every case the day we take it, often the same day as the accident. Our paralegal, Juan Carlos, who has been with my firm for more than 19 years, will travel to the scene of the accident as soon as possible. He will take photographs, gather contact information from all witnesses, and begin to compile our case file. We also have a private investigator who we have worked with for more than 15 years who will begin working immediately in contacting and interviewing all witnesses and obtaining their written statements.
I believe our firm is so successful because we work harder and prepare more thoroughly than many opponents.
Get Legal: What are the most important things a person should do if they have been injured?
Jacob Oresky: The first and most important thing is your safety and your health. You want to minimize the risk of further injury and make certain you get immediate medical attention.
Next, you should take steps to preserve evidence. Get the names, addresses and phone numbers of all potential witnesses. If you are unable to gather this information because of the nature of your injury, ask someone else at the scene of the accident to get this information for you. You should not only rely on police or law enforcement officers to provide this information. The police officers may be occupied and not obtain all the information that you will later need.
Also, take pictures of the scene of the accident immediately, if possible. The camera on your cell phone is fine. The scene of an accident can change very quickly, and a picture of the scene is far more compelling than the recollections of a witness.
It is also extremely important when you seek medical treatment that you tell your doctor or the treating physician at a hospital or medical facility about everything that hurts, no matter how slight. In my experience, people tend to focus only on their most serious injuries. You may have a broken leg and be concerned only about getting the leg set and having a cast put on. You may not say anything about the pain you are feeling in your back, neck or other parts of your body, because the broken leg is more immediate. However, you may find that when your leg heals, you still have back or neck problems. If those injuries are not disclosed to a doctor until weeks or months after the accident, an experienced defense attorney will try to claim that those injuries were not caused by the accident.
Get Legal: Can you give us an example of how your commitment to preparation and hard work has benefited your clients?
Jacob Oresky: While prior results do not guarantee a future similar outcome, we have won over $100,000,000 Million Dollars in settlements and verdicts for our clients. Many of our victories were obtained because we went the extra mile for the client. It is this extra effort and commitment that allows our clients’ cases to be well prepared. This translates to a successful outcome.