If you’ve been injured in a car or truck accident, then you might be considering taking legal action. If you do and you’re successful, then you can obtain accountability and recover compensation for your losses, which can be quite extensive. Your damages might include extensive medical expenses, devastating lost wages, and even noneconomic harm like physical and emotional pain and suffering.But in order to succeed on a personal injury claim you need to know how to prepare for trial. By preparing for litigation you can determine the strength of your case as well as its weaknesses. This will help guide you through negotiations, as you’ll have a better idea of when to accept a settlement offer and when to take the matter to trial.So how do you go about doing that? The best way is to engage in thorough discovery. Discovery is the process whereby you learn what information is possessed by your opponent. In a truck accident case, for example, securing trucking logs and truck maintenance records could be crucial to your case. Yet, the other side isn’t simply going to hand over those documents without being required to do so. So you’ll need to take active steps to secure pertinent documents.Depositions can also be a powerful form of discovery. This is the process of taking sworn testimony outside of court. While depositions can help you learn information from your opponent and other witnesses, it also locks them into testimony. That way you won’t be surprised at trial. If you are surprised by a witness’s inconsistent statements, then you can use the testimony given at the deposition to attack the witness’s credibility. Therefore, a deposition can both help you be prepared for settlement negotiations and trial, and it can give you ammo at trial when the other side changes its story.Of course, discovery is just a piece of the legal puzzle, and it can be riddles with contentious issues that are difficult to resolve. But just because it is challenging doesn’t mean that you can avoid it, especially if you want to be successful. Thus, many individuals who have been injured in a car or truck accident choose to turn to an experienced legal professional who knows how to build their case from the ground up in a way that maximizes the chances of success.