Jonathan Swanepoel, Legal Assistant
Jonathan Swanepoel is a trained and experienced client liaison and paralegal with over 20 years of exposure to a diversity of fields and levels of industry. He has spent the majority of his career building and maintaining productive and mutually beneficial relationships, and always endeavors to understand your particular set of circumstances in a professional, fair and kind manner.
Jonathan is based in Cape Town, South Africa, and lives there with his spouse and two children. Jonathan works remotely and as a remote worker needs to be, by necessity, very flexible, determined and dedicated. Daily he has to overcome the challenges posed by national power outages that have become a part of life in South Africa since late 2007. An additional challenge he has faced is the time difference between Boston and Cape Town. He views such challenges as opportunities to be creative, adaptable, and innovative. These are the skills and that he will bring to bear in assisting you with your case. Jonathan is accountable for the work up for all motor vehicle, slip and fall and personal injury cases. He is responsible for assisting in assembling demand and settlement packages and ensuring that each case that is in litigation is kept on track.
Jonathan works tirelessly assisting our clients in advocating for their rights.
Motor Vehicle Accidents and Your Legal Assistant
How can you best help Jonathan as the intake specialist on your case? For motor vehicle cases, Jonathan needs all paperwork that you get from the insurance companies and your medical providers. To help us prove liability, please send Jonathan copies of police reports, accident reports, names and addresses of witnesses and photographs. It is not ok to rely on the insurance company for photographs. We need updates on your medical treatment following the accident so he can order medical records.
Significantly, Jonathan will need you to write up notes in the form of a memo to us on your pain and suffering. Thus, please keep a diary and note things you cannot do as a result of your injuries. In addition, “suffering” includes the loss you have for things that you enjoyed less than before you were injured. For example, if you were able to attend a wedding or other special event, but not able to dance, that is “suffering” and the party responsible for it should pay. We will not know about this unless you send us your accident diary.
PIP, or Personal Injury Protection, no-fault insurance helps injured victims of motor vehicle accidents with medical bills and lost earnings. However, the requirements are sometimes tough to manage; especially if you are ill and unfamiliar with the “system”. Jonathan can help you with your questions. He will guide you through getting medical bills paid, getting your co-payments paid, and getting 75% of your lost wages as soon as possible.
Premises Liability and Your Legal Assistant
Jonathan will assist you in preparing your premises case against the landowner. He will work with you to get photographs, video, accident reports, legal ownership of the land information. Jonathan will secure your medical records so we can get them to the insurance company to show the injuries you sustained and document your pain and suffering.
Legal Malpractice and Your Legal Assistant
Jonathan will need basic information to get your case started. Jonathan will look up your former attorney to see if s/he had malpractice insurance. Jonathan will then focus on getting information in two areas. First, what was the underlying case? What result should you have gotten? Second, what are the money damages, your losses, as a result of the malpractice.
Legal malpractice cases often necessitate complex intakes, and reviewing voluminous documents, because there was a prior case. Thus, any assistance you can provide in helping Jonathan focus on the problem in the underlying case, the negligence of your former lawyer, and how to calculate damages, would be helpful.
Jonathan is Your Legal Assistant
Jonathan works with your lawyers, and we work for our clients. Thus, Jonathan is your legal assistant! You get the benefits of a legal assistant with experience, in a small office where every file is reviewed by your lawyer at every stage of your case.