If you have become injured, it can be confusing as to what to do next. Do you have a personal injury claim or not? Should you get an attorney for your accident body injury? It’s always smart to look at the local personal injury lawyers and choose one to represent you in court. To find a good one, you can look at online reviews of various attorneys in the area that specialize in personal injury cases.
It’s a good idea to choose a lawyer who specializes in accident case law. These attorneys know all about accident compensation claims and how the process works. They have experience working with insurance companies to get settlements. They know how much is best to ask for so that the amount is reasonable for the area and the situation. With their experience, you will have good representation for your case.
Your personal injury case may be a long one, depending on whether it goes to trial or not. It can happen that your attorney negotiates a settlement with the insurance company before it would go to court. This results in much faster settlements so that you can get your medical bills and other expenses paid.
When you incur an injury as a result of someone else’s mistake or negligence, you might be experiencing a lot of emotions. You might feel anger, anxiety, fear, and of course pain. If your injury leaves you unable to work, then your income and way of life are severely limited, in addition to coping with the pain of the injury itself.
While only time and medical care will help you heal and overcome the damage that the accident caused, you might be able to recover some of the financial loss that you incurred through the incident. Below, we’ve put together a guide to getting through a personal injury case successfully:
Three Things Your Personal Injury Attorney Wishes You Knew
- There is no amount of documentation that is too much.
Your personal injury attorney will need to prove that your injury is a direct result of a mistake or negligence on the part of the defendant. Since there is no way to rewind time so the judge and jury can see for themselves what happened, the lawyer will have to paint a picture of the environment that lead to your injury, and the documentation that you have regarding the situation is the proverbial paint brush and canvas that he has to establish fault on the part of the defendant.
As soon as you incur your injury, make a timeline of the events that led to the injury. Sometimes, the slightest detail has an overwhelming impact on the outcome of the case. And those slight details are often easy to forget if you don’t write it down immediately. Take note of the time of day that the incident occurred, the weather conditions, and any people who were around at the time. Absolutely add details such as the reaction that the defendant had after the injury; many times the shock of accidents cause people to admit they were wrong, before they have the wits to cover their tracks. This testimony can be used to support your claim.
- Get contact information from any witnesses.
The greatest tool that your lawyer has in establishing the details of the case is the word of people who saw the incident unfold. However, if the witnesses of the accident leave the scene before you collect information about them, it will be next to impossible to ever get in touch with them again. If you are physically able to, try to get contact information from anyone who is around you when you were injured. If you are not able to, try to designate a person to be in charge of getting personal information from potential witnesses. This will give you a real advantage in winning your personal injury case, especially if your case goes to trial. The unbiased testimony of a witness who doesn’t stand to gain or lose anything through trial holds a lot of weight with juries.
- Take photo evidence of the scene of the accident.
What better way does your attorney have to paint a picture of the accident for the jury than actual pictures? As soon as you are injured (if physically possible) take photos of the environment and any factors that contributed to the injury. For example, if you fell while going down stairs, make sure that you have pictures of the wet floor that doesn’t have a caution sign, the missing hand rails, the poor lighting, a crack or missing tile that you tripped over, and so on. Many times, as soon as an accident occurs, the property owner will go to great lengths to make sure the repairs are made before record can be taken of their negligence. In this case, those pictures will be your proof of the negligence.
While we’re on the subject, you should also take extensive photographs of your injuries. The human body has a miraculous ability to heal itself. Your injuries might not look as severe by the time you get in touch with your attorney and they advise you to take pictures. Take photos immediately after the wreck, and then regularly throughout your healing process. This is important for establishing the extent of the damage.
Do you have any other tips for winning a personally injury claim? Please share them below.