Do you have any idea of how a personal injury lawyer functions after you hire one for your case? There are several stages of proceedings that a personal injury case goes through. Thorough knowledge of them would help you get an idea of the course of action. When you have filed a case, you can anticipate the following steps through the case, and set your expectations about time consumption in the steps accordingly.
The investigation
The investigation is the first part always in any personal law injury case. How strong your case depends on how much evidence the lawyer can collect against the convict. And that is why the lawyer needs time to investigate, and needs to utilize every opportunity to find out things. In this stage, the lawyer would find every possible evidence in any form to prove that you were the victim of negligence or mistake by the convict so that your injury can be proven to be because of the convict. This part demands time. On the successful completion of this part only, the case can be made strong enough to proceed so that you can win the claim.
Medical record and bill collection
While the lawyer takes time to investigate and collect evidence, you get the time to get your checkup done by the doctor. You need to get fit by the time the lawyer prepares for the settlement or trial as required. Therefore, you need to complete your treatment too. Not all personal injury cases are simple and enable a speedy recovery. Some cases are quite complicated and give you really bad shocks. That is why you may take some time to go through prolonged treatments to get a little stabilized with life. And when you get a little stable or more, then you also complete a lineup of treatments. This enables your lawyer to collect the medical bills of yours. Here again, it has to be mentioned that it needs some time to collect all the bills. Some bills are not released by the medical facility immediately. You are made to wait for a few reports and bills. And as the lawyer can collect them all, you are good to go for adding those bills also in the personal injury claim.
Claiming insurance
The next part is claiming the insurance or claim. Claiming demands a big role of the lawyer. A lawyer can claim it for you after arranging all the evidence against the convict. Normally settlements for claiming the insurance happens outside the court. Both parties meet with their respective lawyers outside the court at a decided place and talk. After the detailed talk the claim is dealt with. Both parties come to a settlement where a final claim is settled. This is the normal way a personal injury insurance claim gets settled.
Negotiations
Often negotiations are needed to come to a settlement in a personal injury claim process. Both the parties would like to get a better deal and would try to negotiate things in their favor. That is why the lawyers have to participate actively, and sometimes aggressively to negotiate and settle at a point. If things get settled, they you win your claim at this point, and then pay the lawyer the percentage of the claim that was decided initially and keep the rest for your own use.
Discovery
Discovery is the next step that follows in case the claim is not settled outside of court. Some lawyers like Hershey Law Injury Attorney LA would avoid dragging the case to trial, but sometimes things may in some cases do not turn up as thought, and then the case may have to be taken up to court. A trial date is then taken from court. Now the job of the lawyer is to prepare for the case. Depositions from all evidence, witnesses, and people involved would be collected by the lawyers of both parties in this phase till the date of trial comes.
Trial
A trial is the final stage of the proceeding which very seldom materializes, only when an out of court settlement does not happen. You would like your lawyer to be very much experienced and able so that the lawyer can handle a trial and give it a shape. Often lawyers would not accept any payment or demand any payment from you if you did not win the trial. You will be charged by the attorney only when you win. And when you win, you will pay a pre-decided portion of the claim money you would get to the attorney, and that will be his fee.
Find a personal injury attorney with some research
Avoid approaching just any lawyer with the case. Rather do some gala research. If you are too sick with the injury, then ask a dear one to do the research for you. The case will be turning your life and make things much better than the present, only when your initial choice of the lawyer is right. You should see how good the lawyer is in settling the case out of court. Also, you must see how many percentages of cases taken by the lawyer gets settled without a court trial. In case the case reaches court, how many cases the lawyer has won till date is also another parameter you should look for.
Concluding words
This is how experienced attorneys handle a personal injury case. And your lawsuit would also get handled this way when you contact one of the reliable and respected names in your area. It’s just that, as you move through every step you will have to stay mentally prepared for the time gap, and the time consumption in the proceedings. And one of the toughest challenges faced by the injured is to recover from the state. Some injuries are recoverable although it takes time. But some are too serious, and the person has to go on with the permanent damage from the injury. That is why summoning up mental strength in the process is also a vital step. You can do this better when you have the added courage in the heart that you are being headed by one of the best personal injury attorneys.
