When you have been in an accident, your priority should be your recovery. However, if someone else’s negligence or recklessness caused the accident and your injuries — and those injuries have led you to suffer physical pain, emotional suffering, lost wages, and medical bills — you may be entitled to claim compensation.
But should you hire a personal injury lawyer? Do you even need one? We break down the benefits of hiring a personal injury lawyer so you can get the compensation and justice you deserve.
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Do You Need to Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer?
First, do you even need to hire a personal injury lawyer when you’re in an accident? You have every right to handle your claim independently, and you may be tempted to, especially if it means you won’t have to fork out legal fees.
However, the law is complex, and handling a personal injury claim on your own means dealing with stubborn and negotiation-savvy insurance adjusters who will try to minimize the settlement you receive. Negotiating with insurers can be challenging at the best of times, and when you’re still processing your accident and injuries, insurance adjusters will, sadly, take advantage.
So is it really worth going the DIY route with your personal injury claim?
The only real advantage is that you keep 100% of your settlement if you win. But studies show that just 51% of those who don’t hire a lawyer win their personal injury claim. By comparison, a whopping 91% of people who hire a lawyer receive a settlement.
More noteworthy is that those who hire a lawyer receive a much higher settlement than those who go it alone — even after paying legal fees. Without a lawyer, plaintiffs receive an average of just $17,600, compared to $77,600 with legal representation.
Ultimately, whether or not you seek legal counsel is a decision only you can make. If you’re still on the fence, hiring a personal injury lawyer has many more benefits.
1. They’ll Handle Negotiations with the Insurance Company
When you have been involved in a car accident, you will likely encounter an insurance adjuster. These professionals represent the insurance company of the person or party at fault for your accident, so they play a pivotal role in determining how much compensation you’re offered.
After your accident, the insurance adjuster will want to know your side of the story. They’ll ask about your injuries and how they’ve affected you, and they’ll base your initial settlement offer on this information.
Dealing with an insurance adjuster can be stressful. Fortunately, you don’t have to.
One of the many benefits of hiring a personal injury lawyer is that they will speak to insurance adjusters on your behalf, allowing you to focus on your recovery.
2. They Can Tell You What You Could Recover in Damages
It’s the question many accident victims want to know: “How much can I expect to get in a settlement?”
While you can use tools like our personal injury calculator to get a ballpark figure, only an experienced personal injury lawyer who’s successfully negotiated multiple settlements in cases similar to yours can tell you what damages you can recover.
In all personal injury cases, two main types of damages can be awarded:
- Economic damages
- Non-economic damages.
Economic damages are the monetary losses you’ve suffered, so they’re reasonably easy to quantify. Economic damages cover lost wages due to not being able to work; medical bills, such as prescriptions, surgery, emergency room fees, blood tests, and scans; and property damage, such as damage to your car in an auto accident.
You can probably work out your past expenses on your own, so why hire a personal injury lawyer?
Economic damages don’t just cover past expenses — they also cover future expenses. For example, if you’re in a car accident and sustain a spinal injury that leaves you paralyzed, you will likely need ongoing medical care. If you lose a limb in a motorcycle accident, you’re entitled to recover the costs for any prosthetics, adaptations, and at-home medical care you might need, even if you’ve yet to incur those costs.
This is why it’s beneficial to hire a personal injury lawyer. They have access to the best medical professionals who have experience forecasting medical expenses, ensuring you get the maximum possible compensation for your claim.
A personal injury lawyer is also invaluable for negotiating the second category of damages you can recover: non-economic damages.
Non-economic damages compensate you for pain and suffering, mental anguish, and loss of enjoyment. But unlike economic damages like work income — where you have payslips or work contracts that demonstrate how much you earn and, therefore, how much you’ve lost — non-economic damages are difficult to calculate.
Non-economic damages are worked out by applying a multiplier — between one and five — to your economic damages. This might seem fairly straightforward, but it’s incredibly nuanced.
If your economic damages total $50,000 and you consider an initial offer of $75,000 (based on a 1.5 multiplier), you might think it’s a fair settlement. However, based on their experience and the opinions of other qualified experts, your personal injury lawyer might believe they can negotiate twice the total of your economic damages ($100,000). The difference — $25,000 — is no small sum and could go a long way to helping you recover or adapt to life with your injuries.
3. They Can Advise You Whether You Should Settle or Go to Trial
Another benefit of hiring a lawyer is that they will present any offer made by the other party’s insurance company and advise on whether it’s fair.
Even if you don’t hire a personal injury lawyer to advocate for you throughout the whole process, it’s worth speaking to an attorney before you sign any paperwork to understand what you’re agreeing to. Once you sign, there’s no going back — even if your injuries get worse months or years later.
If you don’t want to settle for a figure less than what you’re entitled to — or your lawyer advises you could receive more — negotiations will usually continue.
Personal injury cases rarely go to trial. Most insurers will back down and offer a fair settlement, as litigation — or taking the case to court — is time-consuming and costly, and success is never guaranteed.
The advantage of going to court is that you could receive a much higher settlement than anything offered during negotiations, but it’s a risk. It can also take many years for a trial to get on the docket, so you could face many months of uncertainty.
The decision is ultimately up to you, but your lawyer is there to advise you on the strength of your claim and its chance of success.
4. They’ll Prepare Your Case for Trial
If you decide to go to trial, a personal injury lawyer becomes necessary. An attorney will let you know what to expect and build a persuasive, strong case.
As we’ve already discussed, personal injury cases rarely go before a jury, as parties tend to settle way before that stage. However, it can be worthwhile if the settlement you’re offered — even after multiple rounds of negotiation — is still far below what you’re entitled to. For example, if your injuries mean you will have to live the rest of your life on limited or no income and you have to rely on someone else to perform even the most basic tasks, and you’re offered a sum that won’t even begin to cover your medical bills, let alone compensate you for your injury’s impact on your independence and relationships, your personal injury lawyer might recommend going to trial.
The benefit of hiring a personal injury lawyer is that they’re well versed in trial advocacy and know how to put together a strong argument. They can also subpoena witnesses to your accident to testify on your behalf and call on expert witnesses — such as doctors, physical therapists, and accident reconstructionists — to bolster your case.
5. They’ll Be Your Advocate from Start to Finish
A good personal injury lawyer will be by your side every step of the way, from the moment you first walk into their office to when you win your case. Of course, they’ll fulfill their legal obligation and fight to get you the maximum possible payout, but it also comes with an additional responsibility: taking the stress of the claim off your plate.
Hiring a personal injury lawyer means having someone in your corner to field all requests from the responsible party (or parties) and ensure communication only goes through them. You’ll still be kept updated at each stage of the process, but ultimately, you can trust that the lawyer you’ve hired has your best interests at heart and is working on getting you the compensation that is rightfully yours.
6. They Can Arrange Medical Care and Postpone Payment
Even a claim that goes smoothly and resolves fairly quickly can still take a while. It takes time to collect evidence, build a case, and negotiate a settlement, and if you choose to go it alone, you may face a large obstacle early on: paying for your medical treatment. Since personal injury claims with legal counsel have a high success rate, they can negotiate terms with medical providers to postpone payment until you receive compensation.
Personal injury lawyers can also arrange medical care for you. The benefit is two-fold: you get access to healthcare to treat your injuries, and your lawyer can use your medical records to strengthen your claim — and prevent the other party from disputing them.
7. They Won’t Need Payment Upfront
Most personal injury law firms operate on a contingency fee basis. This means you’ll only ever pay legal fees if you win your case. This is a massive relief to accident victims, who often face an uncertain future when it comes to paying the bills and can’t afford to set down a chunk of money for legal representation.
At Patino Law Firm, our motto is, “No fee until we win”, so you can trust you’ll never receive an unexpected bill.
8. They Have the Knowledge You Need to Win Your Case
Personal injury law is complex, and some claims — such as truck accidents, where multiple parties can be responsible — can be particularly challenging.
Personal injury lawyers often specialize in several core areas, giving you a wealth of expertise and experience at your fingertips, no matter how your accident happened or what injuries you sustained.
Our personal injury lawyers in Texas have experience handling all types of cases, from auto crashes such as car accidents, truck accidents, and motorcycle accidents to work injuries and slips and falls.
Now you know if you should hire a personal injury lawyer, but how do you find the right one for you? Check out our guide to choosing an attorney and discover the top questions you should ask a personal injury lawyer before hiring them to take on your case.
You can also find out if we’re a good fit for you by booking a free, no-obligation case review. To get started and see how much you could be entitled to, call us day or night at 855-LAW-NINJA or fill in our contact form — it takes less than a minute, and we’ll call you back with an appointment time that suits you.
