Personal Injury Attorney in Alamogordo, NM
For more than 40 years, Tim Chelpaty has represented seriously injured people across southern New Mexico. In Alamogordo that work centers on the hardest injuries to prove: harm caused by medical negligence, and wrongful death when a preventable failure costs a family someone they love.
Representing injured families across Alamogordo and the Tularosa Basin for more than 40 years.
You will never be handed off to a junior associate or a call center. When you call this office, you get Tim. He is the same attorney who will see your case through to the end.
Injury claims in the Twelfth Judicial District
Alamogordo sits in the Tularosa Basin, between White Sands and the Sacramento Mountains, and it is far enough from everywhere else that being hurt here comes with a particular kind of isolation. An injury claim that arises in Otero County is generally filed in the Twelfth Judicial District Court on New York Avenue, a few blocks from downtown. Tim has practiced in southern New Mexico courts for more than 40 years and knows how cases actually move through this district, and which defense firms and carriers show up on the other side.
Alamogordo also has a small, tightly connected medical community. Most serious care in the county runs through a handful of local providers, with Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center as the regional hospital, and anything more specialized usually means a referral over the pass to Las Cruces or El Paso. That creates a specific set of problems for injured patients here. Records get split across systems. Follow-up gets lost between a local provider and a distant specialist. A condition that should have been caught in Alamogordo goes undiagnosed until someone finally looks at it seventy miles away. Reconstructing that chain of care is a large part of what an Otero County malpractice case actually involves.
Cases like these are won or lost in the records. Before Tim pursues a malpractice claim, an independent medical professional goes through the chart to identify where the care actually departed from the standard. That review is what separates a claim worth filing from a bad outcome nobody could have prevented, and it happens before Tim asks you to commit to anything.
You will not be passed to a case manager or a rotating cast of associates. In Alamogordo, you work directly with Tim, from the first phone call through settlement or verdict.
What is a personal injury claim?
A personal injury claim is a civil case brought when someone else's carelessness causes you real, documented harm. It is not about punishment, and it is not about a bad day. It exists to shift the cost of an injury, the medical bills, the lost income, the permanent limitations, off the person who was hurt and onto the party whose failure caused it.
Every claim, whatever the setting, has to establish the same four things. Where cases differ is in how hard each one is to prove. In a straightforward accident, fault is often obvious from the scene. In the injuries this office handles, it usually is not: proving that a competent provider would have acted differently takes medical records, expert analysis, and a willingness to go through the chart line by line.
The four things any injury claim has to show
- DutyThe other party owed you a duty of care. For a doctor or hospital, that is a professional duty to the patient.
- BreachThey failed that duty. In a malpractice case, that means care fell below the accepted professional standard.
- CausationThat failure, not the underlying illness or condition alone, is what actually caused your injury.
- DamagesYou suffered real harm: added medical bills, lost income, disability, or pain and suffering.
The injuries this office knows best
Some injury cases turn on what a camera saw. The ones Tim takes turn on what a chart says, and those are a different kind of work: slower, more technical, and far harder to prove. He has spent more than 40 years on exactly that kind of case, and the practice is built around it rather than around volume.
What Tim handles in Alamogordo
Serious injuries and deaths caused by medical negligence, and the wrongful death claims that follow from them.
- Medical malpractice by a physician, hospital, or clinic
- Surgical errors and preventable harm during or after surgery
- Misdiagnosis, missed diagnosis, and dangerous delays in treatment
- Eye injury malpractice and negligent vision loss
- Nursing home abuse and neglect
- Wrongful death caused by any of the above
Why the focus is this narrow
Concentrating on one kind of injury is what makes it possible to do this work properly.
Because of that focus, Tim no longer takes motor vehicle or pedestrian accidents, premises liability and slip-and-fall claims, workplace injuries, or dog bites. If the harm came from medical care, though, that is squarely his work — a missed fracture, a surgery that went wrong, a condition nobody caught until it was too late. Call (575) 541-0515 and describe what happened; the review is free either way.
Do I actually have a case?
A bad outcome is not always someone's fault, and knowing the difference is the whole job. If something about your care in Alamogordo does not sit right, our plain-English guide walks through the warning signs and when it is worth having your records reviewed.
Injury claims Tim takes in Alamogordo
Medical Malpractice
The heart of the practice, and the largest share of the injury cases Tim takes in Otero County. When a physician, hospital, or provider falls below the accepted standard of care and a patient is harmed, Tim builds the case to prove it, backed by an independent medical professional's review of the records.
Wrongful Death
When a preventable failure in care costs a family someone they love, and someone has to answer for it.
→CommonSurgical Errors
Preventable harm during or after surgery, from wrong-site procedures to retained instruments.
→CommonMisdiagnosis & Delay
A missed or late diagnosis that allowed a condition to worsen when it could have been treated.
→Elder CareNursing Home Abuse
Neglect and substandard care of vulnerable residents in long-term care facilities.
→Tim also represents Alamogordo and Otero County clients in eye injury malpractice, hospital negligence, birth injuries, medication and pharmacy errors, anesthesia errors, spinal cord and nerve injuries, and failure-to-diagnose cancer claims. If a provider's mistake caused you or a family member serious harm, it is worth having the records reviewed, even if it is not listed above.
From your first call to a filed claim
Free case review
You tell Tim what happened, either on the Alamogordo line or in person. There is no cost and no obligation, and you do not need to know whether it was negligence. That is what the review is for.
A physician reviews the records
If the case may have merit, Tim gathers your medical records, including any care referred out to Las Cruces or El Paso, and has an independent medical professional examine the medicine to identify where the standard of care may have been missed.
Tim builds and files the case
When the review supports a claim, Tim evaluates duty, breach, causation, and damages, then pursues it in the Twelfth Judicial District himself, from filing through settlement or verdict.
By the numbers
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Amounts reflect prior matters; every case depends on its own facts, liability, injuries, insurance, and the law.
Settlements and verdicts won across medical malpractice and personal injury claims.
More than 40 years representing injured clients across southern New Mexico.
Rated by clients for communication, results, and support throughout their case.
Sit down with Tim in Alamogordo, by appointment
Tim's practice is based in Las Cruces, but Otero County clients are not left to a phone line and a records request. When meeting face to face will help your case, Tim arranges to see you in Alamogordo rather than asking an injured client to make the drive over the pass.
“They never missed a beat. The communication was excellent and timely, way above what we expected. I would recommend anyone in need of legal services call Tim Chelpaty.”Chris S. · Las Cruces, NM · via Lawyers.com
Alamogordo clients ask us this
A mix of New Mexico injury law basics and the questions Tim hears most from Otero County clients before their first free case review.
Visit the Resource Center →Tim concentrates on serious injuries caused by medical negligence: surgical errors, misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis, eye injury malpractice, and nursing home abuse and neglect, along with wrongful death claims arising from those failures. He no longer accepts motor vehicle, premises liability, workplace, or dog bite cases.
No. Tim no longer accepts auto accident, motor vehicle, or pedestrian accident cases. The practice now concentrates on medical negligence and wrongful death. If a crash is not what brought you here but a doctor's or hospital's mistake is, call (575) 541-0515 for a free review.
You can meet with Tim in Alamogordo. The practice is based in Las Cruces and does not keep a walk-in office in Otero County, so local meetings are arranged by appointment rather than by dropping in. Much of the early work, the free case review and gathering records, is handled by phone at (575) 541-0515; when sitting down together will help, Tim comes to you. Cases arising in Otero County are generally filed in the Twelfth Judicial District Court here in Alamogordo.
Deadlines vary by the type of claim and by who the defendant is, and medical malpractice deadlines in New Mexico can be especially strict and fact-specific. Claims against a government entity carry their own shortened notice requirements. Because exceptions exist and missing a deadline can end an otherwise valid claim, it is best to speak with Tim as early as possible.
The Patient Compensation Fund is a state-administered fund that can pay damages above a qualified health care provider's base coverage in malpractice cases. How and when it applies depends on the provider, the date of the events, and the version of the law that governs the claim, all of which Tim can walk you through.
Tim works on a contingency fee basis. That means you pay no attorney fee up front; the fee comes from the recovery, and only if there is one. The initial case review is free and confidential.
Yes. Tim represents clients throughout Otero County and the Tularosa Basin, including Tularosa, La Luz, Cloudcroft, Mescalero, and Timberon, as well as families stationed at Holloman Air Force Base, not just the city of Alamogordo itself.
Seriously injured in Alamogordo?
Tim offers a free, confidential case review for Alamogordo and Otero County residents. No obligation, no cost, and a straight answer about whether you have a case, from an attorney who has practiced in southern New Mexico for more than 40 years.