Before You Settle
Lessons from Both Sides of New York Personal Injury Cases
by Jason Tenenbaum
Hardcover and Kindle · October 27, 2026
About the Book
What happens between an injury and a settlement?
A security camera changes the understanding of a collision. A surgery report arrives without the earlier medical visits. Strong evidence about a supermarket's inspections meets a separate dispute about the client's continuing limitations.
In Before You Settle, attorney Jason Tenenbaum draws on experience representing injured people and defending injury claims to explain the work behind a personal-injury case. He follows the decisions a client faces, from early paperwork and missing evidence to testimony, insurance disputes, and a proposed settlement.
Sixteen chapters address the questions that remain after the first consultation. How should an old injury be explained? What does returning to work mean for the claim? How can a photograph lose its context? What does the settlement number leave after expenses and other obligations? What still needs attention when the legal matter ends?
Written for injured New Yorkers and the people helping them, this book makes the lawyer's reasoning easier to understand. It offers practical lessons without promising a particular result.
What's Inside
- The First Decisions After an Injury
- Your Case Has More Than One Clock
- Tell Your Lawyer the Whole History
- The Records That Were Missing
- Proving What the Accident Changed
- When the Injury Changes Your Working Life
- Find the Person Who Actually Saw It
- Your Life on Camera
- When the Other Side Asks Questions
- Why the Case Is Taking So Long
- The Money Available to Pay a Claim
- When the Insurer Says No
- What a Settlement Number Leaves Out
- Deciding Whether to Settle
- If Your Case Goes to Trial
- After the Case Ends
About the Author
Jason Tenenbaum is the founder of The Law Office of Jason Tenenbaum, P.C., a New York law firm he opened in 2009 in Huntington Station. His practice includes personal injury, no-fault insurance disputes, employment matters, and appellate litigation.
A 2002 graduate of Syracuse University College of Law, he began his career in New York insurance litigation, where he tried hundreds of no-fault cases and later managed a no-fault practice group. That work on the insurance side taught him how claims are evaluated from the other side of the table, and what a file can and cannot prove.
Today he represents injured people and employees across New York.
Have a question about your own case? Contact the office for a consultation.
This book and this page provide general information about personal-injury claims in New York. They are not legal advice, and reading them does not create an attorney–client relationship. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Attorney Advertising.