Skilled Lawyers Can Protect Your Right to Recover Compensation in Most Personal Injury Cases
Whether you’re hurt in a fall or an auto accident, by a defective product, or due to some other occurrence, you need to concentrate on your recovery. As you focus on emergency medical treatment and therapeutic care, your personal injury attorney focuses on protecting your legal rights. They will establish a barrier between you and all of the people who would disrupt your recovery or peace of mind.
While your personal injury case progresses, you can expect the following:
- As your medical bills begin to pile up, hospital administrators will want to know how you plan to pay them.
- If you were involved in a car accident, the investigating police officer will want answers.
- Your insurance company will need your statement. They’ll want to determine if they owe you PIP benefits and if they are responsible for the other driver’s damages.
- The other driver’s insurance company will need to know your version so they can figure out if they can walk away without paying you anything.
- If you fell on someone’s property, the liability insurance company will want to know what happened.
- If you were injured on the job, the HR department and your boss will also have a few questions to ask.
While you might be able to handle these and other issues on your own, you have too much at stake to go it alone. During the confusing post-accident days, your personal injury lawyer intervenes on your behalf. As your legal representative, they force people to deal with them instead of bothering you. Your experienced personal injury attorney remains vigilant from the moment you decide you want their representation until you settle.
Personal Injury Attorneys Create Complicated Strategies
A personal injury lawyer protects the legal rights of accident victims according to the relevant tort law. That sounds simple, but it requires that they recognize and anticipate legal issues before they arise and intervene on your behalf. For your personal injury lawyer, this often involves a continuous flow of tasks and a strategic approach.
Good Personal Injury Lawyers Will Discuss the Accident with You and Advise You of Your Rights
If someone else has injured you, you may be entitled to collect compensation for your injuries and losses. A personal injury lawyer can advise you about what steps you need to take to negotiate a settlement. If the insurance company refuses to come to a fair settlement, a personal injury lawyer should be ready to take your case to court.
Your version of the accident becomes your lawyer’s road map as they protect your legal interests. When your injury attorney discusses your case with you, they listen for facts and information that require additional clarification and follow-up. They will ask relevant questions about your accident circumstances, injuries, pain, recovery, disabilities, insurance, and other key information.
For example, if you were injured in an auto accident at an intersection, your injury lawyer will want to know about lights, traffic signals, speed limits, or traffic signs that control access to the highway. If you were injured in a slip and fall accident, they need to understand the circumstances surrounding your fall. This includes the lighting, your shoes, obstructions in your path, or anything that could have caused or contributed to your fall.
What Does a Personal Injury Lawyer Do to Establish a Successful Claim?
Part of preparing for settlement and trial is doing an investigation of the case and performing discovery. A personal injury attorney will investigate your case, which may involve hiring expert witnesses and finding all of the evidence available as a result of your accident. Many personal injury lawyers conduct on-site and in-person investigations themselves, while others hire independent investigators to do the work.
An investigator will:
- Track down and interview witnesses
- Obtain scene photos, videos, and diagrams if they exist
- Gather police and employer reports
- Get photos of involved vehicles
- Document adverse conditions at premises injury sites. If no pictures or videos exist, the lawyer may have someone go out to the accident site to take pictures of evidence left on the ground, such as skid marks, vehicle parts, and other evidence that cannot be picked up.
Your Personal Injury Attorney Will Use Records Obtained By Investigators to Evaluate Your Personal Injury Claim
These and other tasks provide evidence for the personal injury attorney to review and evaluate as they determine fault. Your accident injury lawyer will also need additional documents to help you get the compensation you deserve, including your medical records and medical bills. If you have an underlying condition that causes your injuries to heal slowly, such as diabetes or an immune system disease, your personal injury attorney may need additional records.
These records would be used to demonstrate that recovery will not be typical for you due to your underlying illnesses and/or that the injuries you sustained in the accident exacerbated your underlying condition. Finally, your personal injury attorney will prepare interrogatories—written questions—for the other party. They may also request depositions to ask the other party questions under oath.
Tenacious Personal Injury Lawyers Will Negotiate Your Claim with Insurance Companies
If you’re in an auto accident, your auto insurance carrier and the other driver’s liability carrier will want to talk to you. If you suffered a fall injury or an on-the-job injury, a general liability or workers’ compensation carrier will want information. They will all want recorded statements.
Your personal injury attorney will:
- Refuse the liability carriers’ requests to control the flow of information that might undermine your claim
- Arrange and supervise your statement, or coach you ahead of time on what not to say
- Have additional conversations with your insurance company to encourage them to cover your medical bills and auto repairs