If you’ve been injured in an accident that was caused by another person or organization’s negligence, you may have the right to file a personal injury claim to seek compensation. This includes medical bills, lost income if you are injured and unable to work, pain and suffering, and other damages. You have two options for pursuing your personal injury claim – hiring a lawyer or handling it on your own without a professional legal representative. So, how do you decide what works best for your situation? There are several key factors to weigh when determining if you need a personal injury lawyer or if you’re able to self-represent.
Benefits of Hiring an Attorney
An experienced personal injury lawyer offers you many important benefits, making it highly advisable to retain counsel for most significant claims. Some top benefits of legal representation include:
- Expertise navigating the claims process and insurance negotiations – The personal injury settlement and litigation processes are intricate, with many complexities and opportunities for error. An attorney knows how to avoid traps, meet all procedural requirements, and put your case in the strongest position for the highest payout.
- Objectivity evaluating claim details and settlement offers – Emotions often run high after a serious accident causing injuries and damages. An attorney sees the facts, medical details, and previous case results objectively to determine fair value.
- Resources to thoroughly investigate your claim – Building a compelling injury claim requires gathering lots of evidence and documentation. A personal injury law firm has a team of professionals, such as investigators and medical experts, to substantiate every aspect of losses incurred.
- Courtroom experience if a trial becomes necessary – Most personal injury claims settle out of court before trial. However, a knowledgeable lawyer can competently litigate in court if you can’t reach a fair, out-of-court settlement.
Without legal expertise in these areas, injured victims risk jeopardizing their right to compensation or accepting offers far less than deserved. Qualified lawyers ensure clients walk away with maximum damages permissible.
Disadvantages of Self-Representation
While hiring a lawyer has many upside benefits, it’s also understandable that some people feel confident in self-representation or worry about legal fees eroding settlement payments. Common drawbacks injured victims soon realize handling claims themselves include:
- Unfamiliarity with procedural rules and court operations – Each step along the claims and litigation path has particular rules and documents requirements. Missing deadlines or making procedural mistakes can get your case thrown out.
- Lack of bargaining power against insurance carriers – Insurance providers and their legal teams know all the negotiation tactics and use this to leverage lower settlements for pro se plaintiffs.
- Overwhelming responsibility gathering all evidence and damages data – Collecting all pertinent medical records, incident reports, witness statements, employment reports, reimbursement documentation, and expert opinions takes tremendous time and effort. Attempting this alone easily becomes unmanageable.
- No match for defense counsel if pushed into court – Seasoned insurance defense lawyers eat rookie personal injury plaintiffs alive in court proceedings. Going toe-to-toe against them without your own counsel seldom succeeds.
These examples demonstrate the extreme disadvantage you face trying to wrangle a personal injury claim alone versus the strength brought with competent legal representation.
Assessing if You Require a Lawyer for Your Situation
As exhibited, hiring a personal injury lawyer clearly bolsters most claims. However, some less complex cases with minor injuries or limited damages may be reasonable to self-represent. So, how do you evaluate what’s best for your specific claim?
Key criteria include:
- Extent of injuries and medical treatment – Cases requiring significant ongoing doctor’s care, surgery, physical therapy, missed work, or long recovery periods often warrant legal help navigating complex details. Minor soft tissue strains resolvable with minimal treatment may be simpler to self-manage.
- Disputes over liability apportionment – Injuries with obvious one-party negligence can be easier to self-settle. However, any comparative negligence debates over shared fault complexify the claim, signaling retained counsel as prudent.
- Insurance settlement cooperation – Early settlement talks going smoothly may indicate that a claim’s simplicity allows self-handling to conclusion. Stonewalling or hostility from insurers often foreshadows a fight better battled alongside legal muscle.
- Financial resources to retain counsel if required – Even with initial intentions to self-represent, having funds set aside to hire a lawyer should out-of-court negotiations break down or court appearances become imminent is wise.
Remember – a free personal injury consultation allows an experienced lawyer to review your case specifics and advise if legal representation appears beneficial or if self-handling may suffice based on the above criteria. Don’t leave compensation at risk by blindly trying to manage on your own without first obtaining an expert opinion.
Weighing Potential Attorney Fees Against Likely Claim Value
Perhaps the tricky balance in deciding DIY claim management versus hiring a lawyer involves comparing legal counseling costs against your recovery outlook. Contingency arrangements where lawyers collect around 30 percent of total settlements or awards achieved remain typical. So, you rightfully don’t want excessive legal expenses cannibalizing your well-deserved compensatory money.
Yet, also consider that the top personal injury attorneys enhance claim resolutions from three to as much as ten times over self-directed efforts. There’s no assurance you possess the skills or leverage to extract those larger sums the attorney often does for clients. Thus, the lawyer maximizes overall recovery dollars of which you still receive the majority even after their percentage fee.
Also, keep perspective that without the lawyer aggressively fighting for you – be it negotiating aggressively with insurers or navigating in court against their law teams – you likely walk away with comparative pennies or nothing otherwise. Hence, lawyers command a reasonable cut of the exponentially greater value they work to secure for injured clients.
The Attorneys at What’s My Case Worth Are Ready to Help
After weighing the case variables above and assessing likely DIY settlement sums against the uplift brought through professional legal representation, we hope you recognize the sizable benefits that retaining a respected personal injury law firm like What’s My Case Worth typically delivers for injured claimants seeking rightful damages.
We handle diverse injury cases with proven results, securing our clients’ maximum compensation in or out of court. Please contact us for a free consultation so we can review your unique situation and advise how we can protect your rights to recovery. We can help you take your first step toward getting the money damages you deserve after suffering harm from another’s negligent actions. The consultation costs you nothing while providing invaluable insights regarding your options and outlook moving forward with potential claim pursuits.
Let the attorneys at What’s My Case Worth fight for you today.
