Senate Bill 863 (SB 863) and Senate Bill 899 (SB 899) have taken the California workers' compensation industry by storm, revolutionizing the way permanent disability is determined along with changes in apportionment of disability. Now that the 5th Edition of the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment is the gold standard as the first step to determine permanent disability in California, the claims, legal, and judicial participants in the workers' compensation system need their own guidance on the use of the AMA Guides in these cases. The Lawyer's Guide to the AMA Guides and California Workers' Compensation, by Robert G. Rassp, is the only practical guide to help you calculate and understand permanent disability ratings under SB 899 and the AMA Guides.

Workers' compensation claims involving the AMA Guides will emerge that hinge on the proper use, misuse, or under-use of the Guides and on the causation of permanent disability under the apportionment statutes and developing case law. The Lawyer's Guide to the AMA Guides and California Workers' Compensation will assist you in the proper use of the AMA Guides and thus enable you to determine whether a medical report constitutes substantial evidence. In addition, there are some observations about the AMA Guides that are intended to assist you in learning and understanding them and to help you formulate questions to doctors about them.

The Lawyer's Guide to the AMA Guides and California Workers' Compensation is organized as follows: