What To Know When Hiring Personal Injury Attorneys

As a personal injury victim, you may feel overwhelmed by questions and concerns such as who is responsible for covering your medical bills, lost wages and damages for pain and suffering. Hiring a lawyer can make the process less stressful for you as you focus on healing. Our personal injury attorneys at Oresky & Associates, PLLC, will handle all communication with the responsible party’s insurance company and pursue compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering.

Here’s everything you need to know when looking to hire a personal injury lawyer.

Do I Need A Personal Injury Attorney?

If you’re injured and believe someone else is at fault, you are likely in need of a personal injury lawyer. Qualifying injuries can result from causes ranging from medical malpractice to motor vehicle accidents that can leave you with injuries, medical bills, and lost wages. Hiring the correct lawyer who will file a personal injury lawsuit is the only way to ensure that you have someone on your side to help you pursue fair compensation.

Recoverable damages include:

• Cost of emergency medical treatment
• Current medical bills
• Future medical bills
• Medication
• Physical therapy
• Lost wages if your injuries prevented you from working
• Reduced earning capability
• Property damage
• Pain and suffering

How Serious Are Your Injuries?

Our accident lawyers consider how severe your injuries are during an initial evaluation. An accident demonstrating apparent negligence resulting in an injury that requires medical attention or time taken away from work often qualifies for a personal injury lawsuit. If you’re unsure, contact our personal injury law firm to get a free consultation regarding your specific situation.

Our experienced lawyers consider expected future costs and discomfort caused by your injuries when preparing your accident lawsuit. If your injuries lead to ongoing pain and suffering, your settlement should reflect that. You should not be compensated for loss of work or medical treatments required down the road.

Why File A Personal Injury Lawsuit?

Hiring a personal injury lawyer helps you recover money spent on damages. After a claim is filed, insurance companies often give you the runaround and make a low settlement offer. They may even deny your claim entirely.

While it is tempting to take the first settlement offer and put the accident behind you, filing a personal injury lawsuit is straightforward with the right team of lawyers on your side. These cases may go before a judge, or they can get settled out of court in a few months. Your personal injury lawyer communicates with the insurance company on your behalf so that you can focus on recovering.

The Insurance Company Doesn’t Want To Settle Your Claim

If the insurance company denies your claim or makes you a low offer, you still have options and may want to consider consulting with a personal injury lawyer.

There are many reasons why the insurance company may deny your claim, make a low offer or delay its response. Setbacks happen due to:

• Disputes over liability
• Incomplete medical treatment
• Complex cases
• Severe injuries
• Multiple People Being Injured

Insurance companies also want to see if a claimant will settle for less. This is the business of the insurance carrier, and they are professionals at handling claims. They may take days to respond to inquiries, take days or weeks to process your documents, put off responding to counteroffers, and engage in settlement strategies that the average person is not equipped to deal with.

If you feel the insurance company is delaying resolving your claim, hiring an attorney will help you understand the process and make sure your rights are protected. At Oresky & Associates, PLLC, our experienced personal injury lawyers can help address these obstacles and make sure your lawsuit gets filed before the statute of limitations expires.

The Insurance Company Issues A Low Settlement Offer

An insurance company sometimes sends an initial lowball offer called a “nuisance value” offer. These offers are issued only to make the problem disappear and reach a settlement as quickly as possible. Don’t accept their first offer without first having an experienced accident lawyer review the facts of your case.

What Qualifies As A Personal Injury Lawsuit?

Accident attorneys see a wide variety of personal injuries, each occurring under different circumstances and at varying levels of severity. Some common incidents likely qualify for compensation. Contact a lawyer for a free evaluation to determine if your experience qualifies as a personal injury case.

These include:

•      Car accidents
•      Motorcycle accidents
•      Bus accidents
•      Truck accidents
•      Medical malpractice
•      Wrongful death
•      Workplace accidents
•      Construction site accidents
•      Scaffold and ladder accidents
•      Premise liability
•      Product liability

Motor Vehicle Accident

In the United States, car accidents are the number one reason people file personal injury lawsuits. Whether you were driving or not, someone is financially responsible for your damages, usually a careless driver. If you are partially responsible, you may still be able to recover some money for your injuries.

Car Crashes

Injuries resulting from a car crash often qualify for compensation, fault is always a consideration. You may file a personal injury lawsuit if you got hurt as a driver, passenger, pedestrian, or customer using a taxi service. A lawsuit against both the at-fault driver and the vehicle owner is possible, depending on the circumstances surrounding the accident.

Motorcycle Accidents

Several factors affect settlements for motorcycle accidents. Who was at fault will weigh heavily on the outcome, as will the severity of your injuries. These personal injury lawsuits sometimes have to deal with bias against motorcycles, especially if the case makes it to court.

Bus Accidents

Passengers, pedestrians, and other drivers on the road involved in the accident may file lawsuits involving bus accidents. A personal injury attorney helps determine whether the bus company, the bus driver, or others are at fault.

Truck Accidents

A truck can cause significant damage and injury during an accident, even more so than a car crash. Hiring a personal injury lawyer to pursue fair compensation for your injuries and damages can help to protect your rights against large trucking companies.

Medical Malpractice

A medical malpractice lawsuit concerns medical professionals at fault for an injury occurring during medical treatment in either a hospital or a doctors’ office. You may also have a personal injury case if your doctor fails to diagnose you with a disease, leading to further damages such as  pain and suffering.

Wrongful Death

If an accident results in death, the estate  can file a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of your loved one. Hiring a legal team holds those at fault responsible and allows you to grieve instead of struggling with the complex lawsuit process.

Workplace Accident

If you get hurt on the job, you may be able to receive money for damages on top of any workers’ compensation you receive against a responsible third party.

Construction Site Accidents

While protocols are in place to keep employees safe, construction accidents are still fairly common. Negligence can lead to long-term health issues, including spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and paralysis. It’s essential to have a personal injury lawyer on your side when your injuries may lead to a lifetime of medical expenses and suffering.

Scaffold And Ladder Accidents

Scaffolding and ladder falls are often preventable. If the required proper safety equipment isn’t available to you and you’ve injured yourself from a fall, you may be able to file a personal injury lawsuit against the responsible parties.

Premises Liability

A landowner can be found at fault if an injury occurs on their property due to their negligence. Qualifying properties include all public and private properties such as homes, parks, or retail stores. More than just slip and fall accidents, premises liability also covers dog bites, assaults, swimming pool accidents, fires, and more.

Products Liability

Faulty products that lead to injury also qualify for personal injury lawsuits. Consumers can file product liability lawsuits against manufacturers, companies responsible for assembly, wholesalers, or retail stores for defective items that cause harm.

Steps In A Personal Injury Lawsuit

While most personal injury lawsuits get settled out of court, some do end up in front of a judge and jury.  Keeping this in mind, it is important to contact experienced personal injury attorneys that can devote the time and attention that your case deserves.

Step 1: Contact an Attorney

The first step after being injured is to contact an attorney. The first consultation is usually free, and the lawyer informs you at this point whether or not they believe you have a case.

Step 2: File a Personal Injury Complaint

Your attorney can try to settle or file documents starting a personal injury lawsuit known as a summons & complaint in court. Your lawyer then serves the defendant, the party responsible for your injury, with the lawsuit documents. The defendant, unless in default, will respond with a legal document called an answer.

Step 3: Pursue an Out-of-Court Settlement or Go to Trial

The pre-trial and discovery phase allows each side to gather evidence and prepare their case. If you decline to settle at this time, both you and the defendant may need to appear in court for depositions.

Step 4: Trial Await Verdict

It takes time for a jury to review the evidence during your trial. After deliberating, they will make a verdict on who is responsible for the accident and damages.

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What Your Personal Injury Lawyer Does

A personal injury lawyer is always on your side and goes above and beyond to pursue damages. While their main goal is to get you fair compensation for what you’ve been through, they also perform several other essential duties.

Help you understand your rights. One of these duties is explaining your rights. As laws differ from state to state, people often don’t know their rights after an accident, and having a personal injury lawyer can be incredibly helpful. They can explain your rights and offer advice about your specific legal situation to help you make the best decisions moving forward.

Research and gather evidence. An accident lawyer also performs a professional investigation to better your chances if you go to court. Their research can include gathering expert witnesses, investigating the incident scene, and reconstructing the accident.

Provide experience and knowledge. Often people don’t consider the long-term effects an accident can have on them. Since experienced accident lawyers have handled many personal injury cases, they can come up with a more accurate estimate regarding how much a specific injury will cost you over your lifetime.

Handle communication and paperwork. Most importantly, a personal injury attorney knows the legal system and documents and files everything correctly. They handle all contact with insurance companies, medical professionals, and the defendant. Overall, they pursue compensation for damages while minimizing the stress surrounding the situation.

How Are Personal Injury Attorneys Paid?

One of the biggest concerns people have when looking to hire an attorney is the cost. When filing a personal injury lawsuit with Oresky & Associates, PLLC, you pay for nothing out of pocket. We offer free case evaluations and work on a contingency fee basis, meaning there are no legal fees unless we win your case.

If you receive a settlement, our attorneys get paid a percentage of the awarded compensation damages. The percentage amount is agreed upon ahead of time, so there are no surprises. We give our clients the freedom to focus on healing from their injuries instead of worrying about costs and fees.