What to Expect From a Personal Injury Lawyer

On the surface, filing an insurance claim does not seem like a difficult process. You complete each section of the claim form and in addition, submit physical evidence such as photographs of your injuries and images captured at the scene of the personal injury incident. However, filing an insurance claim on your own can lead to an adjuster denying a valid claim or approving a claim for a value that is far below what you deserve.

Hiring a personal injury lawyer ensures you receive fair treatment, as well as have your claim reviewed in a timely manner.

Let’s see what to expect from a personal injury lawyer during the insurance claim filing process.

Gather and Organize Evidence

Although you can fulfill the role of investigator, your injuries might require immediate medical care, which prevents you from gathering physical evidence. Another possibility is a business owner might refuse to give up important physical evidence, such as the footage captured by a store security camera. With the help of an experienced attorney, you should be able to collect the type of physical evidence that strengthens your claim. A personal injury lawyer also interviews witnesses that provide support for your version of events.

One of the reasons why Morgan and Morgan receives positive online reviews from clients is the meticulous way our attorneys conduct investigations. We also assign properly credentialed investigators to accompany our attorneys during every investigation of a personal injury case.

Interacts With the Insurance Company

You have better things to do after a personal injury incident than have to interact with an insurance adjuster. The most important goal involves recovering from your injuries. Interacting with an insurance adjuster also can make an already stressful event much more stressful because of the time it takes to receive word about the status of your claim. Hiring an experienced personal injury lawyer allows you to focus on other aspects of your life, as well as not have to deal with the frustration that is often generated by interacting with an unhelpful insurance adjuster.

One of the advantages of working with an experienced personal injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan is our attorneys have developed cordial professional relationships with insurance adjusters across the United States.

Calculate a Reasonable Value for Compensation

Whether it needs to be done during the insurance claim filing process or before filing a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages, your personal injury lawyer helps you calculate a fair value for compensation. If you submit an unreasonable value for compensation, the insurance adjuster processing your claim might immediately deny your request for compensation during negotiations. Your attorney considers the value of tangible expenses such as medical bills, as well as the value of non-economic damages. Non-economic damages represent the costs associated with pain and suffering, which can include emotional distress issues like fear, anxiety, and/or depression.

Negotiate With the Insurance Adjuster

Although you can appeal an insurance company's decision to deny your claim, the attorney assigned to your case from Morgan and Morgan might recommend trying to negotiate a settlement. Filing an appeal prolongs an already lengthy claim review process, while negotiating a settlement can get you the compensation that you deserve much faster.

The personal injury lawyer assigned to your case submits a fair value for compensation, which the insurance company can either accept or reject. If the insurance company rejects your offer for compensation, the adjuster handling your case might submit a counteroffer that you and your attorney review. The insurance company also can reject your initial offer and request both parties wait for a decision on an appeal of your claim.

Several rounds of counteroffers can follow the initial offer until both parties reach an agreement or decide to go through the appeals process.

Another type of legal support you can expect from a personal injury lawyer at Morgan and Morgan is to file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages before the expiration of the statute of limitations. To file a personal injury lawsuit, your attorney must provide another type of legal support, which is to prove the presence of the four elements of negligence. The attorney you meet with during a free case evaluation explains in detail what it takes to prove another party committed one or more acts of negligence.

Each state has established a deadline for filing a personal injury lawsuit. Although most states have set a deadline to take legal action between two and four years, you might live in a state that has established a deadline as long as six years or as short as one year. The clock starts ticking for filing a personal injury lawsuit on the date of the incident. However, you might receive an extension if you sustained one or more injuries that developed delayed symptoms. For example, concussions represent a common type of injury that takes hours or even a few days to develop symptoms such as fatigue and migraine headaches.

The personal injury lawyer assigned to your case by Morgan and Morgan will encourage you to take legal action as quickly as possible after a personal injury incident for two important reasons. First, your personal injury lawyer wants to submit witness statements as close to the day of the personal injury incident as possible. Witness accounts tend to become less reliable the longer they are given after a personal injury incident. Second, you need to receive compensation right away to take care of costly medical bills. Healthcare providers typically do not grant patients permission to hold off on paying medical bills until they receive compensation from an insurance company and/or from a favorable legal judgment.

If you do not file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages before the expiration of the statute of limitations, you can expect the court clerk processing your case to remove it from the judicial docket.

The most important type of legal support to expect from a personal injury lawyer at Morgan and Morgan concerns receiving the compensation that you deserve. In addition to helping you file a persuasive insurance claim that leads to the approval of compensation, your attorney also might recommend filing a personal injury lawsuit that seeks three types of compensation.

Special Compensatory Damages

Also referred to as economic damages, special compensatory damages represent the tangible expense associated with your case. Medical expenses by far represent the costliest type of economic damage, with the combination of diagnostic tests, treatment programs, and physical therapy sessions potentially running your medical bills into thousands of dollars. You also have the right to seek compensation to cover the costs charged for prescription medications and the use of an assistive device like a motorized wheelchair.

Special compensatory damages also include the value of repairs to your property. Repairing your vehicle after a collision can cost thousands of dollars as well. You also should seek compensation for any damage done to electronic devices. Lost wages also fall under the category of special compensatory damages, which you recover by submitting copies of bank statements and employer timekeeping records.

General Compensatory Damages

General compensatory damages address the costs associated with pain and suffering, which typically involves some type of emotional distress. Sustaining one or more injuries does much more than trigger physical pain. You might experience emotional distress symptoms such as anger, acute anxiety, and a prolonged bout with depression. Your attorney calculates a reasonable value for general compensatory damages by using a formula that factors in the value of special compensatory damages.

Punitive Damages

Judges do not award punitive damages to pay for a plaintiff’s financial losses. Instead, punitive damages punish a defendant for committing one or more acts of negligence. Punitive damages also act as a deterrent to discourage a defendant from committing the same act of negligence in the future. Gross negligence, which the judicial system defines as negligence with malicious intent, can generate a value for punitive damages that exceeds the combined value of special compensatory and general compensatory damages.

Learn more about what to expect from a personal injury lawyer by scheduling a free case evaluation today with Morgan and Morgan.