Is It Worth Hiring a Personal Injury Attorney?

Attorneys have four options when charging clients for legal services. Choosing an attorney to represent you by the hour is a costly mistake, especially for a complex personal injury case that takes months to resolve. It does not take long for an hourly arrangement to put you in a financial hole that grows deeper with the accumulation of medical bills. Another option is to pay a fixed rate, but this option is not a good choice because a fixed rate does not provide a personal injury attorney with an incentive to get you the compensation that you deserve. This third option is called a retainer fee, which is the payment for one specific type of legal service.

With a personal injury case, you can expect to need several different types of legal services, which makes a retainer fee arrangement a costly option as well.

As the name implies, a contingency fee arrangement means your personal injury attorney gets paid contingent on you benefiting from a favorable outcome for an insurance claim and/or a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages. In other words, your lawyer gets paid when you get paid. Most personal injury lawyers charge between 25 percent and 40 percent for a contingency fee, depending on the complexity of a case, as well as where a client is in the insurance claim and personal injury lawsuit process.

As we mentioned, the value delivered by your personal injury attorney derives from the compensation you receive for sustaining one or more injuries that resulted from an incident when another party committed one or more acts of negligence. Without proving negligence, you do not have a strong enough case to file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages.

Economic Damages

The most common type of monetary damages awarded for personal injury lawsuits is called economic damages. Every tangible expense, from the costs associated with medical treatment programs to the receipts generated by an auto repair shop, makes you eligible to receive compensation. Your attorney calculates the tangible costs of diagnostic tests, physical therapy sessions, prescription medications, and the use of an assistive device such as a pair of crutches.

You have the right to seek compensation for the cost of repairing your car and any electronic devices that sustained damage. Your personal injury also seeks compensation to recover lost wages, if you missed time from work because of the injuries sustained from a personal injury incident.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages represent the costs associated with pain and suffering, which represent the lingering emotional distress issues that often develop after going through a traumatic event like falling down a flight of stairs. Common emotional distress issues that develop after a personal injury incident include fear, anger, and acute anxiety. Your personal injury attorney calculates a reasonable value for non-economic damages by using a formula that factors in the value of economic damages.

Punitive Damages

The lawyer assigned to your case by Morgan and Morgan does not request a value for punitive damages. Instead, the judge hearing your case awards punitive damages to punish the defendant for committing at least one act of negligence. Punitive damages also act as a deterrent to discourage the defendant from committing the same act or acts of negligence again. If the defendant committed an act of intentional negligence, the judge hearing your case might award you punitive damages that exceed the combined value of economic and non-economic damages.

If you got involved in a fender bender or you slipped and fell and the only thing bruised was your ego, then hiring a personal injury lawyer might not be worth the cost of paying for legal representation. However, for a vast majority of personal injury cases, hiring an attorney is more than worth paying for legal services.

Acquire Persuasive Evidence

Although you gather evidence such as photos of the incident scene, your attorney conducts an extensive investigation to obtain additional hard physical evidence such as the video captured from a traffic or security camera. The personal injury attorney assigned to your case by Morgan and Morgan works closely with an in-house investigator to review the formal incident report, as well as interview witnesses that support your version of events.

Calculate a Fair Value for Compensation

As we mentioned, you have two primary ways to receive compensation to recover financial losses: From an insurance claim and a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages. Your personal injury attorney calculates a fair value for both types of compensation by adding the value of economic and non-economic damages together. One of the most frequent reasons why insurance companies and civil court judges deny compensation or reduce what is proposed by a plaintiff is the submission of an unreasonable value for non-economic damages.

Acts as an Intermediary Between You the Insurance Company

Insurance companies prefer to deal with policyholders that do not hire a personal injury attorney. Without the legal support of a Morgan and Morgan lawyer, the insurance company you have to deal with might deny a valid claim or approve a claim for a value that is significantly lower than the compensation that you deserve. Your lawyer also closely monitors the progress of your claim to ensure the insurance company does not unjustly slow down processing it. At Morgan and Morgan, our personal injury lawyers have accumulated the experience required to build positive professional relationships with insurance adjusted working all over the United States.

Tries to Negotiate a Settlement

One of the hidden values of hiring a personal injury attorney concerns the willingness of your lawyer to negotiate a settlement. Some attorneys refuse to negotiate a settlement because they believe they can get a better deal by filing an insurance claim appeal and/or taking your case to the trial phase of the litigation process. The personal injury attorneys at Morgan and Morgan enthusiastically encourage negotiations if that is the best option for a client to receive just compensation. However, our lawyers do not hesitate to take cases to the insurance claim appeals process and/or the trial phase of the litigation process if circumstances warrant taking such actions.

Demonstrate the Presence of the Four Elements of Negligence

To win a favorable legal judgment that awards monetary damages, your personal injury attorney must prove the four elements of negligence. The first element to prove involves showing the other party owed you a duty of care to protect you against sustaining one or more injuries. For example, a healthcare provider owes you a duty of care not to make a surgical mistake that causes you harm. After proving the other party owed you a duty of care, your lawyer presents evidence that proves the other party breached the duty of care doctrine. The final two elements require your personal injury attorney to demonstrate the incident caused your injuries and that the injuries produced financial losses.

Take Legal Action Before the Expiration of the Statute of Limitations

One of the lesser-known reasons why a personal injury attorney is worth hiring concerns filing a personal injury lawsuit before the deadline imposed by the state where you live. Each state has established a statute of limitations for filing a personal injury lawsuit, with most states setting a deadline between two and four years. The clock starts to tick on the filing of a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages on the day when you sustained your injuries. You might qualify for an extension if you suffered injuries that developed delayed symptoms.

Although you have ample time to take legal action, your personal injury attorney will encourage you to act with a sense of urgency for two important reasons. First, you should file a personal injury lawsuit as quickly as possible to receive the compensation required to pay costly medical bills. Healthcare providers do not wait for patients to receive just compensation before sending out bills. You might be able to arrange a payment method that allows one or more healthcare providers to place a medical lien on your monetary damages, but the best strategy remains to file a civil lawsuit with a sense of urgency. Second, your lawyer needs to speak with witnesses right after a personal injury incident to receive the most accurate accounts of what transpired before, during, and after the incident.

Find out why hiring a personal injury attorney from Morgan and Morgan is more than worth it by scheduling a free case evaluation.