Is it worth it to get a personal injury lawyer? You may ask this question after getting hurt in an accident caused by the negligent actions of another party. Getting a personal injury lawyer is one of the best decisions you can make following a personal injury in Naperville, Illinois. Working with a lawyer allows you to pursue your claim objectively, not emotionally. Your lawyer knows the legal process and will avoid common mistakes that self-representing plaintiffs make. The lawyer has the resources to conduct investigations, value your claim, determine liability, and push for sufficient compensation.
Call Chute, O’Malley, Knobloch, and Turcy, LLC at 312-775-0042 if you have valid grounds for a personal injury claim. You will only pay legal fees after our lawyers win the case on your behalf.
What Is a Personal Injury Claim?
A personal injury claim is a legal process in which an injured party can seek compensation from the person or entity that caused his or her injury. The most common personal injury claims are car accidents, workplace accidents, injuries from defective products, and medical malpractice.
Personal injury laws seek to ensure you get justice after you get injured because of another person’s negligence. The goal is to bring your life as close as possible to what it was before you got injured by compelling the at-fault party to cover your damages.
Example: Let’s assume you got into a car accident and lost a limb or functionality of your limb. Let’s also assume that the injury affected your ability to work. In such a scenario, you can seek damages to cover your medical costs, lost wages, and physical pain and suffering. This money would ensure you can sustain yourself despite the injury.
What Are the Benefits of Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer?
While you can pursue a personal injury lawsuit by yourself, it’s wise to hire a personal injury attorney. Having legal representation is extremely beneficial for the following reasons:
Objectivity
The time following an accident tends to be a vulnerable time for anyone. The same is true for when a loved one has been injured or killed in an accident. The pain, frustration, and anger almost always mean you will pursue your claim driven by emotion, not objectivity. This does not help your case.
It’s only human to be angry and to want the defendant to pay as much as possible to punish him or her. That, however, is not how personal injury law works. Instead, there are guidelines and stipulations on how compensation is calculated. By hiring a lawyer, you allow objectivity to prevail as you focus on healing, grieving your loved one, or nursing an injured loved one back to health.
Handling Legal Processes
As a layman, handling a personal injury claim means you’re learning on the job. Personal injury claims are laden with legal procedures, filing requirements, timelines, and paperwork. Attempting to handle this yourself is a huge gamble.
For example, there are strict timelines on when you should file your case. These timelines are known as the statute of limitations. You will be time-barred and disallowed from pursuing any further legal action if you file your claim past the statute of limitations.
Missing the deadline, submitting improperly completed documents, and other missteps can cost you your case. Having an attorney means you have someone with a firm handle on all the processes, from filing a claim and initiating communication with the defendant to representing you at trial.
Legal Knowledge
Attorneys go to law school and take on numerous cases afterward. This equips them with legal knowledge and experience in cases like yours.
Over time, they learn which strategies work best, form useful networks in legal circles, and develop a firm grasp on legal and court processes. When you hire a lawyer to represent you, you are getting the benefit of their education, skills, knowledge, and networks.
You’re More Likely to Get a Higher Settlement
You are more likely to get a higher settlement when a lawyer represents you than when you are self-representing. In fact, a 2017 survey revealed that personal injury victims represented by an attorney obtained more than 4 times higher average payout than their self-representing counterparts.
A personal injury accident almost always leaves you with medical bills or lost income. This can place you in a rather difficult situation, and insurers are well aware of this. Under these circumstances, it becomes tempting to take the first offer. Unfortunately, this is often a lowball offer, and accepting it includes agreeing not to take further legal action.
Having a lawyer can help you avoid this pitfall. Personal injury lawyers will assess your case and injuries and use the details of your case and precedence to compute what a favorable payout should be. This is the amount they will ask for in the demand letter, giving a base figure for negotiations. Further, they will justify the requested settlement amount during out-of-court settlements to ensure you get the maximum payout.
Access to Resources
The success of your claim depends on several variables, among them how well you can support your claim. Supporting your case requires proof of the accident, clear liability, and expert witnesses supporting your claims.
A reputable personal accident attorney will have expert witnesses, investigators, medics, accident reconstruction experts, and other professionals he or she can call upon. These resources will help your attorney build a strong case.
Proving Liability
One of the elements of a personal injury case in Illinois is liability. Liability means showing who and why the defendant was at fault for your injuries. Unless you can prove this, you have no case against the defendant and his or her insurer.
When you enlist the help of an attorney soon after an accident, the attorney will examine the facts of your case and conduct additional investigations to establish liability. Your attorney will also assess your health and identify pre-existing personal injury conditions.
Valuing Your Claim
Finding the actual value of a claim entails looking at how the injury has impacted you financially, physically, and emotionally. Your lawyer will factor in the economic and non-economic damages suffered.
Economic damages include loss of income, personal injury medical bills, reduced earning capacity, and property damage. Non-economic damages are losses that are harder to quantify. Examples of these include loss of consortium, pain and suffering, mental anguish, and loss of enjoyment of life.
What Factors Should You Consider Before Hiring a Lawyer in Illinois?
A lawyer is an excellent resource in your arsenal when going after compensation for personal injury. However, all lawyers are not equal. The severity of personal injuries and the multiple ways in which they can impact your life require you to find the best attorney possible. Here are some qualities to consider when choosing a personal injury lawyer.
Experience
Nothing beats experience when it comes to legal matters. Find an attorney with experience in your type of case. Such a lawyer will have relevant legal experience, networks, and knowledge of courts and court processes. The lawyer can also help you estimate the value of your case. The lawyer can, therefore, handle your case seamlessly and get you compensated faster.
Success Rate
Besides experience, you should also inquire about your would-be attorney’s success rate. An attorney’s success rate tells you how many cases they win out of the cases they handle. You want to pick an attorney with a high success rate, as it increases the chances of the attorney winning the case on your behalf.
Rapport
A personal injury claim can take as little as a couple of weeks or as long as a couple of years. The timeline depends on the specifics of the case, including liability determination and the severity of injuries. Typically, personal injury suits where the victim has suffered extensive injuries take longer to settle than suits involving minor injuries.
Either way, this is a trying time, and you need an attorney you feel comfortable talking to, asking questions, and leaning on for sound advice. For this reason, as you vet attorneys, try to gauge how comfortable you feel speaking to them, their responsiveness, and their communication style.You can be sure that the defendant’s insurer will have a team of experienced attorneys to defend the suit, and so should you. At Chute, O’Malley, Knobloch, and Turcy, LLC, we take each case personally and come prepared for trial from day one. We don’t back down, and we don’t take chances. If you or a loved one has suffered a personal injury, contact us today and let us help make things right.
