Ronald H. Watson, Private Law Practice

I have been practicing in Eustis, Florida since 1974. I limit my practice to personal injury and wrongful death, social security disability, worker's compensation, domestic relations and criminal cases. During my private practice I worked part-time as assistant public defender for 2-3 years in the mid 1970s. Prior to entering private practice I worked as an Assistant US Attorney, Tampa, Florida, Middle District of Florida from December 1, 1970 through March 31, 1974. I graduated from University of Florida Law School in December 1969. I entered in September 1967 on academic scholarship and went straight through with no breaks completing law school in two years and three months.

In law school I was a member of the board on law review and had my note published regarding industrial development bonds. Following law school I clerked from December 1969 through April 1970 for Judge Walden, 4th District Court Appeal located at that time in Vero Beach, Florida while waiting to take my bar exam and going in active duty in the Army Reserve. I was on active duty in the Army Reserve from April until September 1970 and then clerked for a law firm in Dade City, Florida September 1970 until December 1, 1970 when I began working as Assistant US Attorney. While working as Assistant US Attorney the primary workload was prosecuting criminal cases with jury trials. I also handled civil cases including personal injury and social security disability cases representing the government.

My personal injury and wrongful death practice concerns primarily automobile accidents and premises liability. Premises liability is generally considered slip and fall, trip and fall, any accident involving negligence of the property owner. We normally handle these cases on a percentage, that is contingent fee agreement which there is no attorney fees unless there is a recovery for the client. Also, under personal injury I handle dog bite or other animal injury to the client and injury or death through construction accidents.

To have a successful personal injury or wrongful death claim you need three basic things.

1. Liability
2. A place from which to collect which usually means sufficient insurance coverage
3. Sufficient damages which to proceed.

Liability means the other person is at fault or the legal cause of your accident, Florida has adopted comparative negligence which means that if both you and the other party are the cause of the accident you receive the portion of your damage that is attributable to the other party. For example, if the accident is 50% your fault and 50% the other parties fault the jury determines the amount of damages and you receive 50% of that amount.

As far as coverage is concerned, normally the first thing you do is try to determine how much coverage the other party has or if your insurance will cover any of your damages. In automobile cases, your no-fault insurance should cover 80% of your medical bills and 60% of your lost wages up to the maximum amount of coverage which is usually $10,000.00 after any deductibles you have chosen. If you selected medical payment coverage also, that will take care of the other 20% of your medical bills. Once your automobile coverage is exhausted you can put your medical bills on your health insurance or Medicare or Medicaid, but all of those will have liens upon any recovery which will have to be negotiated. You can try to collect directly from the person but normally if they have insufficient insurance they normally have insufficient assets from which to collect.

Regarding damages, we of course do not know what your damages are going to be until you finish your medical treatment. In Florida, on automobile accidents you have to have a permanent injury in order to recover anything other than your out-of-pocket expenses. In other words, if you have a permanent injury you will recover your pain and suffering and mental anguish. If you do not have a permanent injury you can only get your out-of-pocket expenses. If we have sufficient time we normally wait for you to get to maximum medical improvement and obtain the final medical reports and all the documentation regarding your lost income, medical bills and other special damages and get you in for a settlement conference to discuss trying to settle the case. Then we attempt to settle the case. If we can not the next step is to file suit. If we have to file suit we go through the normal discovery on each side and normally the case is set for mediation with a mediator to again try to settle the case. If that is unsuccessful then it is set for trial normally before a jury which decides liability and damages.

My social security disability practice has grown and is now almost equal to the personal injury and wrongful death practice. I handle all phases of social security disability from the initial application through all the appeal steps. We also handle these on a contingent fee or percentage basis which is normally 25% of back benefits up to the maximum allowed by Social Security which is currently $6,000.00. Therefore, we are not paid any attorney fees unless we are successful in obtaining benefits. I handle both normal social security disability and supplement security income which is commonly known as SSI. Social security is a strange area of the law that allows non-attorneys to represent clients at the administrative level. However, they can not represent the claimant at the Federal Court level. Also, there are no qualifications. They don't have to graduate from school or pass any test so if you hire a non-attorney you don't know if they are qualified or not but you do know that they can not take you all the way through the process. I usually receive at least one call a week from someone who had been represented by a non-attorney and lost at hearing level and then can not proceed any further and they usually have a difficult time finding an attorney that will take it on a percentage at that point because it has gone too far so if you don't hire me be sure to have a qualified social security attorney to represent you during the process.

The Social Security Administration publishes statistics each year showing the number of cases approved at various levels. They normally run at the initial level in the low 30% approved on the first application. The next step is reconsideration. They usually only approve 14-17% at that level. The next step is the hearing which the approval is in the low 60%. That is your best chance of obtaining benefits. After the hearing if it is unsuccessful you have another administrative appeal which is only about a 20% chance of success there and if that is denied you can file suit in Federal Court.

The procedure I normally follow on social security disability cases is when the person calls in to screen the case to make sure it something I think I can help them. That is, that the person is qualified, has enough credits, have worked long enough to have enough credits. You have to have 20 out of the last 40 quarters work paid under Social Security before you become disabled to qualify. If you don't have that you can still obtain SSI or Supplement Security Income benefits if you are poor enough and disabled. The disability must be the inability to any kind of work on a full-time basis for at least one year or that you are terminally ill. Any condition can render you disabled if you are severe enough. Yet again, people work with all sorts of conditions if the severity is not that great. Therefore, it usually depends greatly on the strength of the medical reports that are obtainable from the medical providers. The time involved for this process could be short or very lengthy depending on how many steps you have to go through. You should be prepared for the long haul if necessary because sometimes it takes pursuing the case far enough to get the benefits that you are entitled.