Who can help you most?
The person who can likely help you most be may often be your doctor. You may just want to get better. On the other hand, there is cause for considering a lawyer, someone who can help settle your case while you get better. Though few cases begin until all medical problems are defined – hopefully when you can leave the hospital – there is nothing wrong with considering legal representation early.

Who is at fault?
Liability is important in personal injury lawsuits. Perhaps the most damning evidence – for or against you – comes from a police report. An officer may decide your case, especially if he or she uses witnesses to the accident and gets statements. On the other hand, in cases of medical malpractice, proof is in the results of what happened, and your lawyer needs to take action.

Submitting Your Claim
Insurance companies will process most car injury cases, giving you a number, and then handing your case over to a claims adjuster. The claims adjuster will decide on any damages you deserve. However, there are many cases where your lawyer can make an immediate impact in how much financial compensation you get.

What will insurance cover?
You need to know what the insurance company will cover. Typically, your medical expenses are covered. This too changes from case to case.

How much compensation?
There are many factors beyond simple medical expenses when claiming injury. You might have lost time at work, or be incapable of performing the same job. You might have went through some severe pain and suffering, which can greatly increase your compensation. Your lawyer can give you a fair estimate. Few cases are exactly alike, but you make the decisions, not the person or entity at fault, for what you deserve.

How much damages should you get?
If you suffered property damage, such as to your car, it’s important to get this covered. Though much less important than medical expenses, car damages are a reality.

Negotiate a settlement or go to court?
Should you settle the personal injury claim before you go to court? This all depends on the nature of the accident. Sometimes, you may get a fair offer to settle a case. Say you or a loved one goes through a medical mistake causing major pain and suffering; the initial settlement offer may be much less than you can get. In any situation like this, make no decisions alone – use your personal injury lawyer.

What if you can’t settle?
There are some lawsuits you simply cannot settle before court. Though most personal injury claims can be settled prior to court, sometimes you are too far apart to agree on a number. In these cases, your lawyer is invaluable. If you go to court, he or she is in charge of ensuring you get proper compensation.

Where can you find a lawyer?
You can find personal injury lawyers at your State Bar, online, through referrals, and sometimes by opening the phone book. Online you can get the most information about the lawyer via his or her website. A lawyer is critical in maximizing your claim and ensuring you are treated fairly, so take your time.

Lawyer Only Wins When You Win
First and foremost, you want a personal injury lawyer who follows the “no win, no fee” philosophy. This is a great incentive for an experienced lawyer to help you. If you cannot get a lawyer to take your case, that may mean it’s not a winner. On the other hand, if many are willing to take on your case, that means they’re willing to spend more time and effort in getting results.

Finding Evidence and Witnesses
A good personal injury lawyer allows you to focus on getting better. If you were hit by a car, for example, and suffered serious injury and suffering, often the last thing on your mind is getting a huge settlement. However, who saw the accident, what the police report says, what evidence of injury there is – a lawyer is invaluable in finding these, proving fault, and helping you get proper medical help and compensation.

Negotiating Out of Court
Most personal injury lawsuits with clear proof and liability do not go to court. That makes hiring a lawyer experienced in negotiating very important. The defendant, the person at fault, will often want to settle before you set foot in court. You may even get some immediate offers. However, there is always room for negotiation, and you can almost always get more than your initial offers. But it takes a lawyer to negotiate.

Winning in Court
If you do go to court – not common but it does occur – you likely will have no idea on how to handle  the process. If you have no experience in court, your changes of winning are minimal at best. If you hire a lawyer without the knowledge and skills to win, it may cost you money as well. An experienced personal injury lawyer can help you decide both if you should accept an offer and how to win in court.

How much do you pay?
Typically an experienced personal injury lawyer will take about 25% of the final amount if you settle before court. If you go to court, lawyer fees will be more, making it closer to 35%. Both are very fair. If you get a $25,000 settlement, you might pay $6,000 to $8,000 to your lawyer.

How to Make the Decision
How do you hire the right personal injury lawyer? You can look up many experienced lawyers at the State Bar of your state. You can also find many online. The key point is to go beyond just a few searches; look at experience and rates of several lawyers prior to making a decision.

While some consider forgoing a lawyer, accepting a settlement, and avoiding a lawsuit, you have a right to proper compensation, and your personal injury lawyer protects that right.

While accidents and injuries occur every every minute of the day, it’s important to note your legal protections.  Sometimes the injury does not occur to you. That makes it important to also understand your spouse’s legal options if he or she is involved in an accident, suffers injury in the work place, suffers after a medical mistake, or for variety of other reasons.

Do you have a claim?
You don’t know if you have a claim without looking deeper in what happened, who holds liability, what injuries your spouse suffered, and finally by consulting with a lawyer. If your spouse suffers a minor injury – twists an ankle or something else with little pain and injury – the claim is likely not worth the time and effort. If you end up owing tens of thousands of dollars for medical expenses, and liability is clear, you definitely should consider your rights.

Liability can be proven in a variety of ways. If the police report shows your spouse made little to no mistakes and the other drivers holds liability, that can be a major point in identifying your right to a lawsuit. If a doctor makes a clear mistake, gives your spouse the wrong medicine or advice, and this causes injury, you have legal protections. Bad as it sounds, the more your spouse suffers, the worse the damage, and the clearer the liability, the more value the claim is. On the other hand, this is quite important: you both deserve financial compensation, much more than the basic expenses.

What are the first steps?
This all depends on what happened. You always want a personal injury lawyer to look over your case, but before that, make sure your spouse is healthy, record as many details on the event as possible, record expenses and expected expenses, and find any possible evidence.

Get Better
Your spouse may not be in the best shape to take a major role in the case. If the accident causes whiplash, a relatively common event, you might take the lead role in helping him or her get better mentally and physically.

Get Witnesses and Experts
You might also take a more active role in putting together a case. With a personal injury lawyer’s help, you can collect evidence, find witnesses, and use experts, all to make a better court case.

Who can help?
Rarely do personal injury lawsuits go to court: most are settled before that. While you may want to be in total control of the lawsuit because of your spouse’s injury, you should immediately consult with an experienced personal injury lawyer. He or she will work for any money you get. If you lose, the lawyer should get nothing. If you win, the lawyer gets a fraction, usually 25% to 35%, depending on whether the case goes to court or not. Let a professional handle the case and your chances of a high settlement are great.

How were you injured?
To get you started, in order to see liability, you must first be able to prove injury. If you suffered little injury, filing a lawsuit may be a waste of time. If you suffered serious injury, it’s time to consider legal action. Be clear on how you were injured by getting as much details on the accident as possible.

Who’s at fault, or holds more liability?
Once you know your injury is severe enough, you have to ask who’s at fault. This question can be more complex than you might think. If you walked in front of a car going on a green, you might have trouble proving definite liability. It might be both driver and you hold liability. Liability is crucial. Witnesses, any evidence, and the police report can all influence the decision on who’s at fault.

Are you going to miss work?
If you were hurt to an extent where you will have to miss work, it’s time to consider proper compensation. If your injury is severe, and you will miss work, it’s time to consult with a lawyer. If you, for example, can never work the same job again, the claim could be quite high.

Do you have high medical bills?
If you have spiraling medical bills, even if fault is on both sides you should get some compensation. Usually you will have legal protection if you receive high medical bills you simply have no way of paying.

What were the long term physical and mental effects?
If you cannot work for a long time, you may also lose the ability to do other simple things. You may not be able to go for walks or jogs for some time. You may be confined to a wheelchair. Sexual relations with your spouse may suffer. It’s important to ask this question as long term physical effects can lead to long term mental effects.

Do you have evidence?
What evidence proves fault? Are there witnesses? These questions are critical. If you have trouble proving fault, a lawyer may be better able to help you.

What have you said to the defendant and any lawyers?
Before you even hire a lawyer, you may get some questions from the defendant, sometimes an insurer, and often their lawyer. You should say absolutely nothing until you consult with your own lawyer. Sign no documents, agree to nothing, and say nothing verbally. An experienced personal injury lawyer, an officer, and a judge should be the only people you speak to. And if the defendant is offering you a settlement, do not take it without consulting in detail with your lawyer.

As many can tell you, dealing with auto insurance claims can be frustrating. When an injury is involved, the claim for compensation can be quite high. What you don’t know will be gone over here. Some of this you may know, but it’s a good refresher for dealing with insurance companies. Let’s focus on how settlements begin and end.

Know Liability
Liability is where you begin initially in a car accident claim. It’s often decided by police officers who file a report on fault. There may be witnesses to the car accident who can explain fault. Also, there are certain commonsense accident laws where one person clearly made the wrong decision.

Make a Claim Goal
While this may seem difficult, make a offer you won’t go lower than. This may cover your medical costs, car repair costs, wages lost, and perhaps more important any pain and suffering from the injury. Where do you begin? This is not something to do yourself. Hire an experienced personal injury lawyer — you can find one online — and go over what your offer should be. Remember, your main goal is to get more, but if you have to settle, such as when dealing with a small business, have a benchmark.

Never Accept the First Offer
Insurers never make a good first offer. Well, maybe at times the first offer is fair, but it’s rare. You should deny 99% of first offers. Even if they give you a good offer – in your mind – then you should consider countering. You can always go back to this initial number. If proof is clearly on your side, the insurer is working damage control and trying to avoid a costly court battle; use that to your advantage.

Always Demand Reasons for a Low Offer, Reply Accordingly
If you get an offer so low it surprises you, demand to know why. There are a variety of reasons an insurer may give a lower offer than you expect, even when when knowing you’ll get a low one. There may be some confusion on liability, for example. If you know why the insurer made such a low offer, your counter offer can reflect any new information and clearly show why you deserve more.

Never Lower Your Number More than Once
The final rule of thumb is that you can negotiate, but only to a certain point. If you back down to demands, you lose credibility, not to mention money. If you must, go to court. If you win any extra court fees can be included in the decision. There is nothing wrong with going to court. While it’s rare for most car accident injury claims to reach court, protect your right to proper compensation.

Knowing how to reject and counter offers is a big part of the injury process. You should never do so with an experienced personal injury lawyer. To find one, you can look online. Many offer free case reviews and consultations.

Staying positive can be hard when you have suffered or are suffering. In personal injury lawsuits, sometimes you are in extreme pain, leading to other emotional problems. How can you stay positive during this process?

Protect Your Rights
How can you stay positive if you can’t walk for six months? Or if your in so much pain the doctors keep changing your medications? While it’s not always that bad, you have to consider your rights. You have a right to proper compensation, especially if you are in a bad state. To protect your rights, hire an experienced lawyer. Make no key decisions without family and legal consultation. You may want to just hand over legal matters to a spouse.

Ask for Professional Counseling
Asking for psychological help may seem unnecessary, but many suffer from trauma, depression, and anxiety after a major accident. You may be unable to work for six months, for example, and therefore are worried about paying bills. You should always seek professional help when struggling. Who you see and why are not for the purposes of this piece, but suffice to say it can help you get through the negotiations.

Let Your Lawyer Handle Legal Matters
If you hire a professional personal injury lawyer, let him or her handle all the legal issues. You should have some involvement if you are capable, but rarely do you need to have a major role other than telling the truth and explaining your situation. The lawyer will be working for a portion of the settlement money. That gives him or her incentive to help you win. You can save time and headaches by letting a good lawyer handle your case.

Consider Negotiation
Most personal injury lawsuits end far before trial. If you are worried about losing in court, remember that if proof is clear you will almost always get some reasonable offers. While you should never take a deal without knowing the full extent of your injuries and without guidance of a lawyer, you can avoid a lengthy court battle by taking a fair offer from the defendant. And the money can be quite large. If you have to go to court, as long as liability is clear, the more pain and injury you suffer the more compensation a judge will give you.

Know This Will Pass
While a court battle may take much longer than a settlement, there is always an ending. Your case will be finalized and hopefully you can move on. If you win, you and your family’s future will be protected.   Your injuries will be covered, your lawyer will be paid, and any further damages for pain and suffering can be factored in. While a high dollar value is not the biggest thing in the world, money is an issue for the majority of us.

Winning is not always about money. Winning when you’ve been wronged has much more to do with it than the big check you get. Sometimes it makes a point. Of course, in New York personal injury law, winning is definitely about financial protection. It’s important if you or a loved one has been wronged – whether it’s medical malpractice, a hit and run accident, or many others – to get this financial protection.

Who can help?
First and foremost to winning a New York personal injury lawsuit is who you hire for legal representation. There are thousands of personal injury lawyers just in New York city, and many more outside of it. However, you can narrow the field down quite a bit by years experience, cases won, and price. A lawyer is like a lighthouse ensuring a ship reaches harbor: without it, you may crash and come up with nothing.

How soon must you file a New York personal injury claim?
Each state has different time limits for filing a personal injury claim. In New York, you must file the lawsuit within 3 years of the accident. There are some variations to the laws in other states. Generally you don’t want to rush a lawsuit nor wait too long. If you file too early, and suffer further injuries after not claimed, you stand to lose some financial compensation. Of course, if you wait too long it won’t matter at all. The best policy is to consult with a doctor, then your lawyer, and when the injury affects are clear, to file a claim.

What damages can you get?
States vary again on what kind of damages you can claim, but generally the scope of the laws is very much the same. All common personal injury lawsuits – such as hit and run, brain injury, medical malpractice, traffic accident, etc – can be claimed. However, what many fail to understand is that pain, suffering, and trauma also will be compensated for. If you suffered greatly and your life changed, you may get more from pain and suffering damages than for the actual injury.

How do you prove liability?
Your lawyer’s job is to prove liability and damages. Liability is who’s at fault and why. Sometimes this is quite clear: someone ran a red light and hit you. Calculating damages is different, as you’ll be looking at how the accident affected you both in the short and long term. If you cannot work your job ever again, financial compensation should include loss of work. If you suffered major physical and mental pain, you deserve more. Proving this usually involves a doctor, expert witnesses, actual witnesses to the incident, and if any laws were broken such as running a red light.

How much will you get?
Personal injury lawsuits in all states can be quite high. It does depend on who you are suing. If you’re suing a major company with a lot of insurance, the damages could be of great value. On the other hand, if you are hit by a truck from a small business, they may have less money to give. Usually these cases need not go to trial. You and your New York lawyer will likely get an offer to cover the damages and stay out of court; this saves you time and money.

If you fall on a wet spot in a restaurant, if you fall in on an unsafe piece of property and break a leg, or if you fall in an apartment complex stair, you might wonder what happens next. There are numerous more examples where you may be able to claim liability.

This can be quite complex to go over, so let’s make it clear. You have rights in any accident, but not always the right to sue. This all depends on the nature of the accident. Your rights include damages because of unsafe “premises” (as a building or property privately or commercially owned). That means if you fall in the restaurant because of a clear mistake, if you fall in a parking lot hole, if you fall down some bad apartment stairs, you can claim damages.

How do you prove this? Let’s ask some basic questions and go over the answers.

What Problem?
First, if an accident is caused, you must be able to prove it’s because of defective or dangerous property. This is called “premises liability” where an accident is caused because of an error on the owner of the premises. You can claim damages for both commercial buildings and for private properties.

Using the above examples, if you fall on a wet floor, you must prove the accident wasn’t your fault and the restaurant was negligent (more than possible). If you fall in a parking lot hole, sprain an ankle or break a leg, again that likely can be claimed for damages because the parking lot premises were not maintained. Our final example, where you fall down a stair, is quite dangerous and may be the most obvious example where fault is clear and liability can be proven.

Who can you sue?
First, you have to be able to prove two things: the premises have been mismanaged and you made no key mistakes. In other words, if the stairs are falling apart, you walk up them normally, and you fall, you have a claim. If on the other hand you try jumping down ten steps, you are making a mistake and liability is your own.

You can sue either the owner of the property or the management. This can get quite technical. The important thing is to know you can sue, it is your right. If liability is clear, your layer can worry about who to file the suit against.

What can you get?
Personal injury damages can be quite high, but without proper legal representation it won’t matter. The more negative affects the injury has on you, the higher the claim may be worth. Most personal injury cases do not go to court, being settled instead.

Where can you get legal help?
Legal representation is quite important. In cases like premises liability, the laws vary and it can be hard to find who’s at fault and why. That makes it important to hire an experienced personal injury lawyer. He or she can handle the legal end. You can find many online via law directories and blogs. Query a good number of professional personal injury lawyers, and remember they do get a cut if you win (and that’s more than worth it).

An accident claim is quite often a long distance run, not a sprint. That’s unfortunate in some ways, but really understandable when you think about it. Sometimes more time gives you a stronger case, a better scope of your injury, and the time needed to hire an excellent accident lawyer. This guide first goes over why accident claims are important, then makes it clear what you can do to speed up the process and still get proper compensation.

Why is time important?
You quite often will not know if your injuries are permanent, or if other injuries become problems, unless you wait some months. The recommendation is 6 months to a year, but really, one year is what you want. The extra time protects you from any future physical or mental injury, pain, and suffering. There are so many points to an accident case, so many things which may occur making more compensation needed. You may, for example, not be able to work safely for 2 years or more, but don’t know this until you try working again. The scenarios are many; just remember time is money, but more time can mean more compensation.

What happens before trial?
Before trial, you clearly want to evaluate all the effects of your injury. This is always with your doctor and other medical experts. Until your condition has stabilized, your doctor can make no assumptions. It’s his or her job to show how severe your injuries are, and this process should not be rushed.

The Discovery Process
Also before trial is discovery of key evidence, witnesses, and fault for the accident. Lawyers for both sides will be going over the evidence provided. Both lawyers exchange disclosure documents, list witnesses and experts who will testify, and also have you answer questions under oath. You will then be asked for the basic materials proving your need for compensation, including accident reports, medical costs, and insurance policies.

The Way to Speed the Process Up – No Secrets
The fact is most accident lawsuits do not go to trial. The great majority are settled far before you take a step into court. This saves the defendant excessive lawyer fees; and if your case is a strong one, they might need this money. Settlements are so common in accident cases that they sometimes occur before a lawsuit is even filed. You then pay your lawyer his or her fee from the settlement money, and get your compensation. Even still, you should not rush this process. Do not accept a settlement without the guidance of your doctor and lawyer.

How to Get the Right Lawyer
And just who should you hire for your accident case? There are many thousands of personal injury lawyers who’d love to work with you, most likely, because if you have a winner, they want to help. Not all are out for your money. This is a job, and they deserve compensation for help. But be sure they can help, be sure they have valuable accident law experience in and out of court, and also make sure that they do not charge you too much. Perhaps most important, you want to get along with this lawyer; if the case drags on, hiring a new one can be problematic.

If you’ve been in an accident, you may immediately be thinking of compensation. If you or a loved one have been victim to medical negligence, you likely want the responsible parties to pay. For any personal injury lawsuit, there are legal rules you need to follow. This includes making sure all parties responsible are notified. It’s an important part of the legal process, and this blog guide can help you understand why you need to and then how to.

Why?
It’s important to notify the parties responsible as soon as possible. This is to get your personal injury claim started. You may not even know who exactly was at fault, but have some idea. It’s very important to notify these parties.

Who is responsible?
You should notify anyone involved in the case who might be responsible. The most common personal injury case is a car accident; in this case, you would notify all drivers who were involved. If this is a different kind of accident, you may want to consult with your lawyer as who to notify. If it’s a case of medical negligence, for example, you would definitely need legal consultation in order to prove who is at fault and how they’re at fault. If you’re unsure, as with most legal matters, you need to speak with a personal injury lawyer.

How To Write Notification Letters
Let’s say you have a clear idea on who is responsible for this accident and/or injury. You write a letter explaining there has been and accident and if you were injured. Sometimes there is more than one person to send this letter to. In your letter, you don’t go over facts of the case, proof of your injury, or what you are seeking in terms of compensation. A notification letter is about following the laws and ensuring you can claim damages. So keep it simple and direct. You want your notification letter to simply be a message stating that legal action will be taken.

How a Personal Injury Lawyer Helps
A personal injury lawyer can help you through this process. In most lawsuits, they are not paid unless you actually win the suit or get a settlement offer. Usually, you can expect a settlement offer, sometimes a very fair one. A lawyer can walk you through these initial stages, and then, perhaps most importantly, help you come to a dollar number for fair compensation.