Personal injury lawyers conduct in-depth investigations of accidents and their causes, reviewing statutes, case law and legal precedent to strengthen claims for compensation.
Insurance companies know which attorneys will quickly settle claims cheaply (commonly known as mills). An experienced attorney can help you receive a higher settlement for lost earnings, medical bills and pain and suffering.
1. Auto Accidents
Auto accidents can result in severe injuries that significantly alter daily life. Consulting with a personal injury attorney will help you recover compensation for medical bills, lost wages, property damage and any other losses due to an auto accident.
Lawyers can file your accident claim on your behalf, work with insurance companies to negotiate a fair settlement and file suit if necessary against those at fault. Personal injury lawyers analyze accidents by interviewing witnesses, inspecting vehicles involved and reviewing police reports in order to ascertain who caused them.
Police investigate crashes by looking at whether drivers complied with traffic laws to assess whether any violations contributed to causing it, as well as considering the extent and permanence of injuries suffered by both drivers. They may hire an expert for crash reconstruction purposes or obtain statements from people who witnessed it.
A good car accident attorney will keep records of your treatment, provide a copy of the police report, and ensure all medical bills are paid on time. They will also request narrative medical reports detailing injuries sustained and treatment received; initial diagnosis; prognosis and disability information as well as losses and expenses suffered as a result of this collision. Finally, your lawyer will check to see whether uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage applies in your case.
2. Defective Products
Defective designs, production, or marketing of consumer products can cause severe injuries. If this has happened to you, contact a personal injury attorney right away so they can help recover damages for medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering damages from these defective items ranging from toys and cosmetics to motor vehicles and foods and medicines.
When injured by a defective product, individuals must seek immediate medical treatment and document as much of the incident as possible to preserve evidence of its defect. It is crucial that injured parties act within certain time frames after their injury has occurred in order to pursue compensation claims that may have statutes of limitation attached requiring them to file claims within such time frames.
As part of their practice, defendants often conduct destructive testing on damaged products that results in important evidence being destroyed by doing so. Therefore, it is imperative that these damaged goods remain secure. Only your attorney and representative should access it for safekeeping.
There are three basic categories of defective product cases: design defects, manufacturing defects and failure to warn claims. Design defects involve features inherently associated with the product that make it unreasonable risky for its intended use – for instance a Ford Pinto with an exposed gas tank during rear-end collisions; manufacturing defect claims involve something happening during production that renders the product unsafe; failing to warn claims involve products without warning labels that would allow consumers to understand potential risks or dangers such as an electronic game with small pieces that might cause choking risks for instance; failing to warn claims involve failure to warn claims – for instance involving games with small pieces that might cause choking risks.
3. Medical Malpractice
If a doctor or healthcare provider has caused you injury, filing a malpractice suit could be your solution. Working with a personal injury attorney will allow you to assess if they breached their duty by acting or failing to act in an accepted way that other professionals with comparable training would have done under similar circumstances; and this breach caused harm.
Malpractice claims are handled similarly to personal injury suits; however, medical malpractice requires additional skills and knowledge, since it directly involves patient health and safety. Therefore, when selecting an experienced medical malpractice lawyer it’s wise to enlist their aid.
Misconduct claims often stem from one physician failing to discuss patients with colleagues. This often happens when doctors don’t see each other often or depend on nurses and mid-level providers for relaying concerns over the phone. Therefore, it is vital for physicians to communicate directly and document these conversations in their patients’ charts or electronic medical records.
Personal injury attorneys fight hard for compensation of non-monetary losses as well, such as pain and suffering damages. Although difficult to prove, jurors will consider whether your injuries significantly impacted your quality of life – taking into account factors like your ability to work, emotional distress or loss of enjoyment in family life.
4. Wrongful Death
Wrongful death cases are among the most heartbreaking claims for personal injury attorneys to handle, requiring not only proof that a defendant was responsible, but that their actions caused your family member’s death. Proving this requires showing two components: 1) that there was legal responsibility between the two of you (known as causation) and 2) your loss was directly attributable to negligence or misconduct ( known as damages).
Your lawyer can assist in proving both elements of a wrongful death case. They can also advise as to the kinds of damages available – economic such as funeral costs and lost future income as well as noneconomic such as pain and suffering, loss of companionship and emotional distress damages may all be available to you.
As wrongful death suits can quickly become complex, having an experienced personal injury attorney represent you is crucial. There may be multiple vehicles or parties involved as well as insurance policies with complex language and exclusions to navigate. Your lawyer should have an in-depth knowledge of these issues that they can explain clearly to you; furthermore, an effective wrongful death attorney has experience dealing with insurers so they can assist in reaching a fair settlement for you.
