If an accident hurts you, you may need to deal with injuries, medical bills, missed work, and a lot of stress. You can hold the party that caused your injuries responsible. However, getting fair compensation isn't always easy. That's where a personal injury lawyer can help you. A skilled personal injury attorney knows the laws and procedures involved in these cases. They understand how to investigate accidents, gather evidence, calculate damages, negotiate with insurance companies, and fight for you in court if needed. Having legal representation levels the playing field against big insurance companies and corporations. Let's look at some key reasons why you need to hire a personal injury lawyer if you've been injured due to someone else's negligence or wrongdoing.
Understanding the Value of Your Claim
One of the most important roles of a personal injury lawyer is to make sure you receive full and fair compensation for your losses. This includes economic damages like:- Medical expenses (current and future)
- Lost wages
- Diminished earning capacity
- Property damage
- Costs for assistive services or home modifications
- Pain and suffering
- Emotional distress
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Loss of consortium
Handling Negotiation and Litigation
When you file a personal injury claim against an at-fault party's insurance company, you need to be prepared for an uphill battle from the start. Unfortunately, insurance providers are skilled at minimizing their exposure and payouts on injury claims.
Their business model and profit motives depend on taking in more premiums than they pay out. They have teams of lawyers who protect the company's financial interests by diminishing or denying claims, even those with strong merit.
From the moment you submit a claim, the insurance carrier's lawyers will go to work poking holes in your case. They'll look for any reasons to dispute negligence or assign fault. They'll comb through records trying to find pre-existing conditions to blame for your injuries.
Their legal team will also work to cast doubt on the severity or permanency of your injuries to drastically reduce the claimed damages. If they can't minimize or deny the claim outright, they'll likely start by making a low initial settlement offer.
Dealing with these insurance company lawyers on your own is a difficult undertaking. They are professionals trained in defending these very situations. An unrepresented person is simply outmatched and outgunned when going up against their delay tactics.
This is why you need an experienced personal injury lawyer providing that same caliber of aggressive and skilled legal representation.
Your attorney's job is to handle communication and negotiation with the other side's lawyers and insurance companies. They already know all the bad faith tactics insurers use to devalue and reject legitimate claims. They are familiar with how to overcome and counter those methods.
Your lawyer will advocate for you throughout the entire negotiation process and ensure you don't get rushed into a low settlement.
If the insurance company continues negotiating in bad faith and refuses to make a substantive settlement offer despite the clear evidence and damages, your attorney can file a personal injury lawsuit.
The insurance company's lawyers may think they have the advantage while just negotiating. However, they lose much of that leverage once a credible law firm files a formal lawsuit against their client.
Now, it's not just about minimizing a settlement payout. It's about facing the risk of a potentially much larger judgment award from a judge or jury trial if they continue to stall.
An experienced litigator knows how to pursue appropriate compensation in the courtroom setting. They know which evidence needs to be submitted, what expert witnesses to call, and how to undermine and discredit the defense's tactics. Your lawyer will fight for a fair and justifiable verdict, whether through a negotiated settlement or at trial by a judge or jury.
Having a legal advocate on your side to handle negotiations and litigation is ultimately what forces insurance companies to take your case seriously and make their best settlement offers.
Investigating and Proving Liability
To receive compensation, you must prove that another party was negligent or deliberately acted in a way that caused your injuries. This requires an investigation into the circumstances and collection of evidence such as:- Photos and videos
- Official reports (police, accident, etc.)
- Eyewitness statements
- Expert testimony and analysis
- Preservation of physical evidence
Handling the Legal Process
Personal injury cases are governed by procedural rules, filing requirements, evidentiary standards, and statutory deadlines. From the initial claim filing to the potential need for litigation, court rules must be adhered to. Overlooking just one deadline or failing to submit a required document can derail even the most legitimate injury case. The potential legal pitfalls are endless for an unrepresented plaintiff. You could:- Miss the statute of limitations for filing the initial claim,
- Improperly notify involved parties
- Fail to respond to discovery requests
- Neglect to disclose certain information
- Misunderstand evidentiary rules for medical records or witness testimony admissibility
Preventing Costly Mistakes
Many pitfalls could ruin your chance for compensation. Some common mistakes include:- Providing recorded statements to insurers
- Posting details about your case on social media
- Accepting the first settlement offer
- Missing statutory deadlines
- Failing to mitigate damages appropriately
Allowing You to Focus on Healing
The physical, emotional, and financial impacts of a serious injury are draining enough without the added stress of dealing with a lawsuit. Having an experienced lawyer handle your case allows you to prioritize your health and recovery. Your attorney gathers evidence, evaluates losses, identifies liable parties, demands compensation, negotiates settlements, and fights for you in court. You're free to focus on receiving medical care and getting your life back together.No Upfront Costs
One of the biggest advantages of hiring a personal injury lawyer is that you don't have to pay any upfront costs or fees. For most personal injury cases, attorneys work on a contingency fee basis. This means their fee for representing you is contingent upon them recovering compensation in your case. If they don't win your case and you receive no money, you owe them nothing in legal fees. Under a contingency fee arrangement, the lawyer agrees to take on all the upfront costs and legwork involved in pursuing your claim. This can include expenses for obtaining records, filing fees, expert witness costs, travel, depositions, and more. They cover all of these out-of-pocket expenses throughout the entire process. You don't have to pay a single penny upfront or during the course of your claim. For injured individuals who cannot afford to pay an attorney's hourly fees upfront, a contingency fee arrangement provides access to experienced legal representation without any financial risk. You can hire a qualified lawyer to advocate for you against big insurance companies and their corporate legal teams. If your case is unsuccessful for any reason, you don't owe any fees and end up paying nothing out-of-pocket. Trying to negotiate a personal injury claim alone while facing an insurer's lawyers is an uphill battle that rarely results in fair compensation. By having an attorney handle your case on contingency, you get skilled legal counsel on your side from start to finish while removing any financial barriers to obtaining justice. You have nothing to lose by hiring a personal injury lawyer to represent you.Maximizing Your Net Recovery
Some people avoid hiring lawyers thinking they'll get to keep more of their compensation. But the reality is, personal injury attorneys increase the overall compensation you walk away with, even after legal fees are paid.
Insurance companies are well aware of this fact. They deliberately try settling for lowball amounts with unrepresented claimants. They know that if an experienced personal injury lawyer gets involved, they'll likely have to pay out a much larger settlement or judgment after a lawsuit.
Numerous studies and data analyses have consistently shown that plaintiffs with legal representation recover significantly higher net compensation than those without lawyers, even when factoring in attorney fees and costs.
One of the most comprehensive studies by the Insurance Research Council found that plaintiffs who hired a lawyer received 3.5 times more money on average in bodily injury settlements compared to those without legal representation.
Think about that - after paying their lawyer's contingency fee, the clients represented by attorneys still walked away with nearly 2.5 times more money in their pockets than the unrepresented claimants.
The insurance companies simply do not make good-faith efforts at fair settlements when households are trying to handle these claims alone, without legal counsel.
Attorney-represented cases have so much more value because lawyers understand how to investigate the incident, build a strong case to establish liability, engage expert witnesses and accident reconstruction professionals when needed, and calculate all damages.
They pursue full compensation for:
- Current and future medical expenses
- Lost income
- Disability accommodations
- Pain and suffering
- Any other economic and non-economic impacts the injury has caused
Don't Compromise Your Case - Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer
