By Dansker & AspromonteFebruary 14, 2016
After any type of an injury, there is often someone, or something, to blame. Some injuries are purely accidental, where no one is really to blame, but the vast majority are due to someone’s negligence at some level. So what are you to do if you ended up injured to determine if you have some type of legal option to help cover the expenses of getting you to feel better? You first have to determine if you have any type of a case. For that, your best bet is to contact someone with the experience to know one way or the other for a free consultation.
The Information You Need to Have Handy
You will need to bring a good amount of information with you to that meeting. If your injuries were severe, many personal injury attorneys will come to you to find out if you have a case, so don’t let your inability to get to them stop you from finding out if you have a case or not. Keep track of these things so that you can find out if you have a case, and if so, allow your personal injury attorney to figure out what would be applicable in terms of compensation for your injuries.
- List out when and where the injury occurred, who was around (names and contact information), and exactly what your injuries were.
- Write down all of the steps you took following your injuries, including any medication you took and how much, if you went to the hospital or your doctor and what you were told, and the remedies you were told to start implementing to feel better.
- Keep track of all medical records pertaining to the injury, asking for copies any time you have to go anywhere or to get a medication filled from the pharmacy.
- You should also write down every conversation you have with the person or company you believe responsible as they are much more likely to try and get you to settle out of court if the injuries are obviously their fault.
The more paperwork you can provide this personal injury attorney, the better. They need a lot of information to determine if you have a case or not, so document everything. You would much rather have too much information than not enough.
So You Have a Case – Now What?
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If you were told by the personal injury attorney that you had a case, now you need to decide how to proceed. You need to understand the process of what comes next, and you need to also understand how you would pay for your representation in court. Typically, any personal injury attorney that is willing to come and sit with you for a free initial consultation is also willing to work on an agreement that they do not get anything from you personally unless you are successful in court. Then there will be a pre-determined percentage the personal injury attorney gets out of your total, and you part ways. Just make sure your chosen personal injury attorney offers this option, and if not, find out what options you do have.
The process for getting into court is not always quite as cut and dry as the agreement, however. First, the personal injury attorney is going to have to file some documentation to show that you intend to sue to cover the costs of recovery. Then the personal injury attorney is going to go through a phase called discovery. This is when all of the documentation you have been keeping will help your case. The personal injury attorney will need to find out as much as they can about the cause of the injury, and the circumstances surrounding it. Once this is complete, the pre-trial motions begin where the personal injury attorneys try and figure out what they can do to avoid a trial. This is often when a settlement is offered, paying you for your injuries and helping you get your life back. If there is no settlement, then you and your personal injury attorney will go into trial, either in front of a judge only, or a jury. If the other party is deemed at fault, they will then be told what is owed to you and be told to pay you by a specific time and date. You then only need to sit back until you are paid, and then you can begin to put your life back together.
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