Many personal injury claims are resolved before a lawsuit is filed. Your attorney will negotiate with the at-fault party's insurance company. In personal injury cases, you generally have to sue in the place where the injury occurred or where the defendant lives or does business. If you have insurance, talk to your insurance company first and see what they need you to do. Your insurance company may cover all or some of your costs and you may not have to sue, or you may only be able to sue for the amount of your deductible or for what your insurance doesn't cover.
If you're accused of hurting someone, it might be a good idea to check if your insurance policy covers any of the damages. Your insurance contract may even require you to report it. Your insurance company may pay and you won't be sued. As a defendant, you have the right to respond to the demand. If you haven't already done so, contact your insurance company.
If there's no insurance or it's not covered, you're likely to lose if you don't defend the case. Usually, you must respond within 30 days of the notification of the subpoena and complaint. There are several options for responding; you can learn more in “Decide what to do if you are sued”. After accepting the case, the lawyer will conduct a thorough investigation of the case.
This process includes interviewing witnesses, gathering and protecting any physical evidence, obtaining photos or videos of the accident scene and injuries, and contacting insurance companies. Your attorney will prepare your claim, file the documentation and support requested by the insurer to prove your damages, manage communications with your insurance company, and negotiate on your behalf to obtain the highest possible offer from insurance company. Let's look at the typical course of a personal injury claim, from the accident and immediate concerns to what to expect in every possible step toward resolution. As we just mentioned, if you have the slightest feeling that you are hurt after the accident, go to the emergency room or make an appointment to see your doctor.
Not only is this the right thing to do for your health, but it's also crucial for any injury claim you end up filing. If you don't go to the doctor for some time after the accident and file an insurance claim with the at-fault party's insurance company, the insurance adjuster is likely to argue that your injuries aren't that serious. Learn more about the importance of receiving immediate medical care after an accident. You may want to meet with several candidates before deciding which one is right for you and your case.
Get details on what to ask before hiring a personal injury lawyer. One of the first things your lawyer will do is interview you. The lawyer wants to know everything you know about the accident, your injuries and your medical treatment. Future surprises won't help your case, so be sure to answer all questions as fully as possible. The lawyer will then obtain all of your medical records and bills related to the injury and will probably also obtain your medical history of any treatment you have received in connection with the condition in question in the case.
This part of the process can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. This is a common question, but there is no reliable data that can provide a useful answer. Perhaps most importantly, the unique nature of each personal injury claim means that such an answer would not be of much use to an individual claimant. Simply put, the reconciliation process can take anywhere from a few months to a year or more. However, very few cases are so clean and tidy.
At a minimum, the time needed to reach a fair (and complete) settlement will depend on when you understand the nature and extent of your injuries and all your other compensable losses (damages in the language of the law), and your recovery has stalled. Learn more about damages in a personal injury case. Therefore, if it takes a year to reach a point where your accident injuries have healed as much as they should, then and only then, you should consider resolving your case. We will discuss this a little later. Likewise, if the other party doesn't come to the negotiating table with a fair settlement offer, you may have to aggravate matters by filing a lawsuit.
At that point, when you and the other party begin the time-consuming discovery process, it could mean that the agreement won't come for another year or more. Car accident injury claim settlements are some of the most common in the area of personal injury. Learn more about the liquidation schedule in a car accident case. Most personal injury cases reach some kind of settlement. So, unless an injury claim seems completely unfounded, the claimant doesn't have any medical history that indicates the injury, for example, you're likely to get something that prevents you from reaching a settlement.
Above all else, instead of worrying about how to speed up the process, it might make sense to focus on the big picture and work to achieve the most complete and satisfying result, not necessarily the fastest. Many minor personal injury claims are resolved before a lawsuit is filed. If the lawyer believes that the case can be resolved, he or she will file a lawsuit with the other lawyer or with the other party's insurance company. A good lawyer will not file a lawsuit until the plaintiff has reached a point of maximum medical improvement (MMI).
MMI occurs when the plaintiff has finished all medical treatment and is as recovered as possible. This is because, until the plaintiff has contacted the MMI, the lawyer does not know how much the case is worth. The lawyer also should not file a lawsuit until the MMI arrives. This is because, if the plaintiff is not in the MMI when the case goes to trial, the jury may underestimate the case.
After the initial lawsuit, the other party's lawyer or insurance company usually responds with their own counteroffer, and both parties enter into back-and-forth negotiations to point out the other party's potential weaknesses and point out the strengths of their own, while trying to increase or decrease the value of the lawsuit. Learn more about how the process of negotiating an agreement works in a personal injury case. The experience and skills of your lawyer are a great asset at this stage, but if the talks to reach an agreement stall or the two parties are too far apart, the case moves to the litigation phase. The litigation phase begins when you and your lawyer file a personal injury lawsuit in court.
Keep in mind that any lawsuit must be filed within the strict time limits established by a law called the statute of limitations. For personal injury lawsuits, the legal time frame ranges from one year to six years, depending on the state. See the statute of limitations for personal injury lawsuits in your state. Remember that a personal injury case can be resolved at any time, even soon after a lawsuit is filed in court.
When an injury plaintiff takes the step of filing a lawsuit and opens up the possibility of a lawsuit, it can magically push an insurance company to sit at the negotiating table with a fair settlement offer. The filing of the lawsuit sets the clock for the case to go to trial. Each jurisdiction's pre-trial procedures are different, but generally a personal injury case will take one to two years to reach trial. The discovery phase is when each party investigates what the other party's legal claims and defenses are, in an attempt to understand the other party's strengths and weaknesses.
The parties send interrogatories (a sophisticated word to refer to questions) and requests for documentation to each other, and take statements from all relevant parties and witnesses, usually starting with the plaintiff and the defendant. This process can last from six months to a year, depending on the court's deadlines and the complexity of the case. At this point, your lawsuit is somewhat at the mercy of the court's schedule, but conversations to reach an agreement can continue along with the litigation process, so technically the case could be resolved at any time. When the evidence period ends, attorneys will usually begin to reach a serious agreement.
Sometimes lawyers can reach an agreement simply by talking to each other, but in other cases, they will resort to mediation. This is an alternative dispute resolution process in which both parties to a lawsuit (and their attorneys) receive help from a neutral outside mediator to try to resolve the case. Learn more about mediating personal injury claims. Mediation usually works, but if it doesn't, the trial of the case is scheduled.
A personal injury trial can last a day, a week, or even longer. The length may increase because, in many states, lawsuits are held for only half a day instead of more than a full day. This doubles the length of the trial, but it also allows lawyers and judges to do other things in the afternoon. One important thing to know about lawsuits is that just because a lawsuit is scheduled to be tried doesn't mean that the trial will actually take place on that date. Trials are often delayed due to the judge's schedule.
If your trial is delayed, you should not automatically assume that something unfavorable is happening. Trials are delayed all the time and for the most innocuous reasons. For details about this stage of the process in the context of one of the most common types of injury cases, learn what happens when a car accident case goes to trial. It's important to understand how long your personal injury case may take, but your primary concern should be getting the best outcome, and that often means having a legal professional on your side.
An experienced personal injury attorney will have the skills and experience to guide your case through all of the stages we have discussed here, with the goal of obtaining the best outcome for you. Learn more about getting help from a personal injury lawyer. You can also use the features on this page to connect with an injury attorney in your area. These additional details allow our attorneys to gain a deeper understanding of the details of your case. During the trial, your lawyer will present the facts of the case to the judge and jury. Your witnesses will also testify about what they know or saw in connection with the accident.
The law firm of Briskman Briskman & Greenberg Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers represents injured individuals throughout Illinois, including Chicago, the Chicagoland area, Joliet, Waukegan, Cicero, Evanston, Arlington Heights, Wheaton, Bolingbrook, and Naperville, as well as other cities in Cook County, Will County, DuPage County, Lake County, and McHenry County. For example, car accidents, slips and falls, or workplace injuries are common types of personal injury cases. An attorney can help you better understand the options available depending on your circumstances and can guide you through the complicated process of bringing a personal injury claim to trial. Resolve Your Case Before Filing a Lawsuit Many personal injury claims are resolved before a lawsuit is filed. The statute of limitations for personal injury differs from state to state, and each state has its own exceptions to this deadline.
Evaluate the AttoryHaving the right personal injury attorney on your side can make the difference between winning or losing your case. It's important to remember that in most personal injury disputes, a settlement is often reached long before a trial is necessary. Personal injury attorneys often have important resources that are not accessible to ordinary people who suffer an injury. Anytime someone else may be legally responsible for your accident, it's usually a good idea to at least discuss your situation with a personal injury attorney.
Your injuries are the basis for which you will seek compensation for damages in a personal injury case. In most cases, the injured person (the plaintiff) is suing a person, business, or both (a defendant) because the defendant accidentally or intentionally injured the plaintiff and caused some type of injury. Most personal injury attorneys offer free consultations, so there's no need to pay an attorney to meet with you. Meeting with a personal injury lawyer If you have been injured due to the carelessness of another person, the first step, after receiving medical treatment, is to consult an experienced personal injury attorney for a professional opinion as to whether you have a valid claim.
Your lawyer will ensure that the appropriate parties are part of the lawsuit and that your case presentation meets the deadlines set by your state for personal injury cases.