A quieter, clearer resource for injured workers.
Work Injury Specialists began in 2016 as a reporting project on how American workers actually navigate compensation claims — what they do well, where the system fails them, and how the law is supposed to help. Today it is an independent editorial resource read by workers, HR teams, safety officers, and the occasional labor commission staff attorney.
What we publish
We produce long-form, source-cited guidance on workers compensation, OSHA enforcement, and third-party personal injury recovery. Every piece is written for a worker or family member who is trying to understand a system that assumes prior legal training. We do not write for lawyers. We do not write for insurers. We write for the person reading at 11pm after a shift.
Our coverage includes the mechanics of filing a claim, state-by-state statutory deadlines, what happens at a formal hearing, how to read an impairment rating report, when a settlement makes sense, and the rights that survive long after the paperwork closes. We avoid the defensive hedging typical of law-firm blogs — “consult an attorney” is a fine instruction at the end, but a poor substitute for substance.
Who writes here
Articles are drafted by our editorial staff and reviewed by contributors who have worked inside workers compensation systems — former claims adjusters, labor commission staff, occupational medicine physicians, and plaintiff’s-side attorneys. Reviewers are named in the editorial masthead and disclose any prior or current representation.
Marcus Langford
Editor
Former occupational-safety journalist covering workers comp appeals for a regional labor magazine. Edits every guide and article published on the site.
Sarah Delacroix
Senior Contributor · Claims & Appeals
Fifteen years handling workers compensation claims before moving to independent writing. Focus on state statutory differences and appellate rulings.
Dr. Rafael Pereira
Medical Review
Board-certified occupational medicine physician. Reviews articles covering impairment ratings, maximum medical improvement, and return-to-work protocols.
Editorial methodology
Every article on this site follows the same five-step process. We begin with the statute or regulation itself — not a secondary source — and read the most recent version of the state or federal code. We then review the relevant appellate cases from the past three years to capture how courts are currently interpreting the statute. We check enforcement data from agencies like OSHA and state labor commissions for real-world frequency and patterns.
A draft is written, handed to a subject-matter reviewer, revised, and checked against plain-English readability targets. We aim for a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 9 to 11 — accessible to most adult readers without dumbing down the substance. Where state rules differ meaningfully, we flag the differences inline rather than hiding them in a generic disclaimer.
Corrections policy
If you find an error — a wrong statutory citation, an outdated deadline, a misread case — email us through our contact page. Corrections are applied within 48 hours and disclosed at the bottom of the affected article. We do not silently edit substantive claims.
What we are not
We are not a law firm. We do not represent clients, sign retainer agreements, or take cases. We do not accept referral fees or commissions from any attorney or insurance carrier. Nothing on this site is legal advice, and reading our articles does not create an attorney-client relationship with anyone. When you are ready to pursue a claim, find an attorney licensed in your state — most offer free consultations on workers comp matters.
We are also not neutral. We write from the perspective of the injured worker because that is the party most likely to be underserved by existing coverage. Insurers already have lawyers, adjusters, and nurse case managers reading the same statutes every day. Workers usually have one chance to understand a system built without them in mind. Closing that gap is the entire reason this site exists.
Support & funding
Work Injury Specialists is funded by on-page sponsorships from vetted, plaintiff-side workers compensation firms and by a small affiliate program with legal-services referral networks. No sponsor reviews or influences editorial content prior to publication, and every sponsored piece is labeled. We do not sell reader data, and we do not run behavioral advertising or retargeting pixels.
If you found a guide helpful and want to support the work, the most valuable thing you can do is share it with someone who might need it, or submit a correction if you spot one. Quiet, accurate, accessible — that is what we are trying to maintain.