Personal Injury Claim Intake and Evaluation Checklist: A Practical Checklist

Summary. A personal injury case is won or lost in the first thirty days, usually on facts that are cheap to preserve and impossible to recreate. This checklist runs intake and evaluation in the order the clock requires: conflicts and limitations first, then the liability and coverage investigation that determines whether the case is economically viable at all, then preservation, then the damages and lien picture that determines what the client actually nets. It includes explicit rejection criteria, a coverage map, a preservation inventory, and a valuation worksheet.

What this checklist is for. Evaluating a new personal injury matter and protecting it during the first month. For the underlying law, see Car Accident and Personal Injury Claims: From the Crash to the Check. For the self-represented version, see Handling a Personal Injury Claim Without a Lawyer.

Phase 1 — Before anything else (day one)

Run the conflict check against all drivers, owners, employers, passengers, property owners, insurers, and medical providers. Insurers and hospitals are the ones that get missed.
Calculate and calendar the statute of limitations for every potential claim and every potential defendant. Personal injury periods run one to six years by state; wrongful death is frequently shorter; and a product, medical malpractice, or dram shop claim may run on a different clock.
Screen for a governmental defendant. If any vehicle, employee, roadway, or premises is public, identify the tort claims act notice deadline immediately — some are sixty or ninety days from the incident, and they are enforced strictly. Calendar it in bold.
Identify the fault regime in the state of the incident: pure contributory negligence (complete bar), pure comparative, modified 50% bar, or modified 51% bar. Note whether joint and several liability survives and whether fault may be allocated to non-parties.
Screen for a minor or incapacitated claimant. Tolling, guardian ad litem, and court approval requirements all change the workflow.
Confirm no prior representation and no prior settlement or release, including a property damage release.

Why this matters. Every item here can extinguish the claim regardless of merit. None takes more than a few minutes.

Phase 2 — Liability assessment

Obtain the police report and note the narrative, the diagram, the citation, and every listed witness.
Confirm the citation disposition — a conviction or plea is admissible in some states, a nolo plea usually is not.
Collect photographs and video: vehicles, scene, controls, sight lines, debris field, injuries. Note the time-stamp and source of each.
Canvass for third-party video — businesses, doorbell cameras, traffic and transit cameras. Most systems overwrite within seven to thirty days. This is urgent or it is lost.
Interview and record contact information for independent witnesses. Take a short recorded or written statement now.
Identify statutory or regulatory violations supporting negligence per se — vehicle code, building code, OSHA standard, FMCSA regulation.
Assess comparative fault exposure candidly: speed, attention, seatbelt, positioning, intoxication, prior knowledge of a hazard.
Identify every potential defendant: driver, owner, employer, permissive user, lessor, maintenance contractor, bar or social host, product manufacturer, and premises owner or manager.
For a commercial vehicle, confirm the motor carrier's identity, USDOT number, and safety record.
For a rideshare or delivery driver, determine app status at the moment of impact.

Phase 3 — Coverage investigation

Build a one-page coverage map before valuing anything.

At-fault liability limits — request disclosure in writing; note the applicable state disclosure statute.
Additional layers — employer policy, owner's policy, umbrella, excess, self-insured retention.
Client's own coverage — obtain the declarations page. Note liability, collision, MedPay, PIP, UM, UIM, and umbrella.
Determine whether the state offsets or stacks UIM against the liability recovery. This single question can make UIM worthless.
Note UM/UIM policy conditions: notice deadlines, consent-to-settle, exhaustion, arbitration clauses, and examination under oath obligations.
Identify household policies that may provide UM/UIM by resident-relative definition.
Screen for Graves Amendment issues if a rental or leasing company owns the vehicle — see 49 U.S.C. § 30106.
Assess the defendant's collectability beyond insurance: real property, business ownership, employment. Usually zero, occasionally decisive.

Why this matters. Damages above available coverage are theoretical. Coverage investigation precedes valuation, not the other way around.

Phase 4 — Preservation, within days

Send a spoliation and preservation letter to every potential defendant and insurer.
Specify the items:
- The vehicle itself, before repair or salvage.
- The event data recorder download and any infotainment system data.
- Telematics, GPS, and dashcam data.
- For motor carriers: electronic logging device records, driver qualification file, dispatch and load records, hours-of-service logs, post-accident drug and alcohol testing, maintenance and inspection records, and in-cab video.
- Surveillance video from the premises and adjacent businesses.
- Mobile device data for the operative window.
- Incident reports, inspection logs, and work orders for a premises claim.
Preserve the client's own evidence: clothing, footwear, helmet, damaged property, and the vehicle.
Instruct the client in writing to preserve and stop posting on social media, and to preserve existing content rather than delete it.
Photograph and document injuries as they evolve over the first two weeks.

Phase 5 — Medical and damages workup

Build a treatment roster: every provider, dates, and body parts treated, including pre-accident providers.
Obtain HIPAA-compliant authorizations limited in scope, and order records and itemized bills with CPT codes from each provider.
Construct a medical chronology — date, provider, complaint, objective finding, treatment, work status.
Identify objective findings: fracture, tear, herniation with correlating radicular signs, positive electrodiagnostic study, surgical findings.
Document prior injuries and prior claims to the same body parts. Assume the defense will find them.
Note any treatment gap over three weeks and get the reason into the record.
Determine whether the client has reached maximum medical improvement, and if not, the expected timeline.
Obtain a narrative report or work restriction from the treating physician where permanency is in play.
Quantify wage loss with an employer letter, and lost earning capacity with vocational and economic support if restrictions are permanent.
Compile out-of-pocket costs: mileage, prescriptions, devices, paid household help, home modifications.
Start a client symptom and limitation journal now, not later.
Determine the state rule on billed versus paid medical damages and on the collateral source rule.

Phase 6 — Lien and reimbursement identification

This determines what the client nets, and it is the most commonly deferred and most commonly regretted step.

Identify every payer: health insurer, MedPay, PIP, workers' compensation, disability, Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, VA, and the Indian Health Service.
For a health plan, determine whether it is self-funded ERISA or insured. Request the summary plan description and the reimbursement language.
Note the governing authorities: Sereboff v. Mid Atlantic Medical Services, Inc., 547 U.S. 356 (2006), US Airways, Inc. v. McCutchen, 569 U.S. 88 (2013), and Montanile v. Board of Trustees, 577 U.S. 136 (2016).
For Medicare, open the conditional payment file early — see 42 U.S.C. § 1395y(b) — and evaluate whether a set-aside is appropriate.
For Medicaid, apply Ahlborn, Wos v. E.M.A., and Gallardo v. Marstiller, and plan the settlement allocation accordingly.
Search county records for hospital liens and check the perfection requirements.
Inventory letters of protection and unpaid provider balances.
Screen for a workers' compensation lien if the injury occurred in the course of employment.
Screen for public benefits — SSI, Medicaid, housing, SNAP — that a lump sum would disqualify, and consider a special needs trust. See Special Needs Trusts and Medicaid Planning.

Phase 7 — Valuation worksheet

Fill this in before quoting the client a range.

Component	Amount	Source and support
Past medical — billed		Itemized statements
Past medical — paid or owed		EOBs and balances
Future medical		Physician or life care planner
Past wage loss		Employer letter
Lost earning capacity		Vocational + economist
Out-of-pocket		Receipts
Economic subtotal
Non-economic range		Venue verdict data, permanency, age
Gross range
× Liability probability		Fault regime and evidence
× Comparative fault discount		Realistic percentage
Risk-adjusted range
Capped by available coverage		Coverage map
Less fee and costs		Fee agreement
Less liens after negotiation		Lien inventory
Estimated net to client		The only number the client cares about

Phase 8 — Accept, decline, or refer

Decline or refer when:

The case is in a pure contributory negligence jurisdiction and the client bears any meaningful fault.
Available coverage is minimal and the defendant is judgment-proof.
Liability is genuinely disputed and there is no independent evidence.
The limitations or notice deadline is imminent and the file cannot be worked up in time.
Medical causation requires an expert the case economics will not support.
The lien picture consumes the realistic recovery.
The claimed injuries are not corroborated by any contemporaneous record.
Client credibility problems are apparent at intake.
The matter requires expertise the firm does not have — medical malpractice, product defect, maritime, aviation, or a mass tort.

Send a written non-engagement letter in every declined matter, stating clearly that the firm is not representing the claimant, that no evaluation of the merits has been made, and that a limitations period may apply and may be short. This is a malpractice-prevention document, not a formality. See Legal Ethics in Practice.

On acceptance:

Execute a written fee agreement stating the percentage, whether it changes on filing, whether costs are deducted before or after the fee, and who bears costs if there is no recovery.
Send letters of representation to every insurer.
Send the preservation letters from Phase 4.
Send the client a written instruction sheet: treatment consistency, no recorded statements, no social media, document everything, report new symptoms.
Docket the limitations date, notice deadlines, and a ninety-day file review.

Phase 9 — Thirty-day review

Coverage map complete and confirmed in writing?
All preservation letters sent and acknowledged?
All providers identified and records ordered?
Liability evidence secured, including third-party video?
Every lienholder identified and noticed?
Client treating consistently and journaling?
Limitations and notice deadlines calendared with three reminders each?
Valuation worksheet started and shared with the client as a range, not a promise?