Personal Injury
What are the pros and cons of handling your own case? This is a question that attorneys have heard from potential personal injury clients on numerous occasions over the years. If someone is asking this question, it may be in their best interest to discuss their situation with a personal injury lawyer that is qualified to answer this. This question is akin to someone with a serious medical condition consulting Google, getting “up to speed” on their medical knowledge by reading up online, and then perform a medical procedure on themselves. Farfetched, perhaps, but an analogy that often pops to mind. Make no mistake. If you have been involved in a serious car accident or other significant personal injury causing event, you need to treat it as such. Seriously. If you are faced with medical complications or symptoms that were of a serious nature, there are two options, possibly three: you could forget, or ignore those serious medical issues; you could seek the help of competent medical counsel; or, you could do some of the research online, figure out what was wrong, then diagnose and cure yourself. Obviously the first and last options make little sense. The second option is the one that most people choose.
Let’s talk for a moment about that third option, that of getting as much medical knowledge as one can through the services of Google, and then attempt a medical procedure upon oneself. It’s farfetched. It’s outlandish, and it certainly makes no sense. However, there are some who try to do it both medically and with personal injury cases. One’s bodily integrity is obviously the most serious of matters. When that bodily integrity has been compromised by another, the level of concern, attention and experience needed does not decrease. An attorney can help you in three specific components, phases or occurrences within the larger context of a personal injury claim.
Personal Injury Lawyers Are Familiar With Local Doctors Who Treat Injury Victims.
Most lawyers, and certainly any experienced personal injury attorney, has a fair idea of medical professionals in the area, and those that might be quite conservative in their treatment outlook. Typically, this is the pool of physicians from which the insurance company selects a doctor to render a medical opinion that it then in turn utilizes to deny or delay or minimize the subject personal injury claim. An injury attorney that has familiarity with the physicians that handle traumatic injury in a given area is likely to be familiar with those physicians that are more aggressive in their treatment of those suffering from acute injuries, and indeed are used to, and have experience with providing physical medicine and rehabilitative services for those sustaining acute injury, typically in car accidents.
The Threat of a Personal Injury Lawsuit, or Trial, Has An Impact on Negotiations.
Secondly, the threat of a personal injury lawyer filing a lawsuit, marshaling resources, retaining experts to give needed opinions, and ultimately putting on the case in front of a judge, or a jury is a negotiation “hammer” if you will. Unlike what you may see on TV, no claims adjuster panics simply because a lawyer is involved. An insurance adjuster- locked in heated debate with an unrepresented person about the value of a case -will likely have a skewed opinion of what that injured person may achieve as a plaintiff if they are not represented by counsel. While it is not essential to have a lawyer to file a lawsuit, or to try a case, it really is not too far removed from conducting online medical research, then diagnosing and treating yourself.
The Value Of A Personal Injury Case
Any personal injury-causing event or accident is unique both in terms of the happening of the event, and its effect on those injured. It could also be argued that every injury is unique in that the person affected will experience the consequences of that injury differently from another person sustaining that same injury. A seasoned and experienced personal injury attorney likely has seen a few, and perhaps many cases that are identical to yours. While the effects of the injury on a person might be unique, the injury itself, at least in terms of a medical description of that injury, in terms of a damage calculation, are not unique. Rather commonalities exist. An experienced injury lawyer can put those years of background, experience and training to work, and give you a fair assessment of what your case is worth both in terms of settlement value, and what the case is likely to return after trial. Perhaps it goes without saying, but someone that is not well-versed in the outcomes of hundreds or perhaps thousands of personal injury cases would, of course, lack that same inside insight.
If you have a personal injury case on your hands, contact a personal injury lawyer in your area for help immediately.
