Do I Need a Lawyer for an Injury Case?

Call (972) 599 4100, the Law Office of Doug Goyen, to speak to our personal injury attorney regarding your case.

In order to know if you need a lawyer or not, you need to answer a few questions. If you have a simple case, and the bills are small, you probably don't need a lawyer . . . in fact, you might not be able to find a lawyer to take the case if it is too small of a case.

Consider These Issues:

1. Severity of Injury:
   If you have an injury that will need or has had surgery, or broken bones, or you have been disfigured, then you will need an attorney to pursue your claim. There are too many things that can go wrong to try and "wing it" and handle it yourself. If your injury is serious then the value of the case is high, and you have much to lose in trying to handle it without the help of an attorney.

2. What You Are Out of Pocket:
   If you only have a $1000-$2000 out of pocket (or less), then you might feel comfortable trying to work out a settlement by yourself with the insurance company. If your bills are high, then you should not risk losing your rights to recover that money by trying to handle it yourself. If you are at the point where the bills are so high that you don't want to risk losing due to some technical mistake, then you are at the point that you need to hire a lawyer to help.

3. Liability:
   If liability is disputed, and you need someone to help investigate and gather evidence to present your side of the case, you likely need a lawyer. Attorneys will know what is needed to prove your case, and if there is evidence that can prove your case, they will know where to look to get that information.

4. Sanity:
   Sometimes its just too big of a headache to research all the rules and guidelines on how to present a claim for yourself. Do you have the 10 or 20 hours it will take in making phone calls to the insurance company, researching, gathering all the documentation, figuring out how to present your claim, and all the other issues needed to do it yourself? Dealing with the insurance adjuster or insurance company presents its own problems. Sometimes the adjusters act like they don't care about your situation, or they treat you like you are doing something wrong by asking them to pay for what their driver did, or they keep talking in circles in an attempt to avoid paying you - causing you to spend countless hours gathering what they say they need to evaluate the claim. Preserving your sanity can be as good a reason as any to hire a lawyer to handle your personal injury claim for you.

The most common misconception of those who have been injured by someone else's negligence, is the misconception that the insurance company for the person who caused your injury or harm will pay for the damage that was caused.

Insurance companies are a business. They intend to make a profit. Then intend to be competitive with their competition. Economic laws cause businesses to attempt to gain the highest profit possible in order to compete with other companies in the same business. With insurance companies, this means paying as little as they can on any injury claim. They will know your area you are in and what types of verdicts are coming out of the courts in your area. They will base their offers on that information, but will use cases and examples that help them in arguing to pay you less.

One of the tactics used is to ensure the injured person that "everything will be taken care of".

You assume that this means they will pay the bills. You later learn that what they meant was that they would "take care of" denying your claims once you present the entire claim to them. You also find out later that because you waited to contact an attorney, that the insurance company took many steps to protect themselves from paying you or your claim while you placed trust in them, assuming they were going to do what was right.

What you think is "right" and what an insurance company thinks is "right" are not the same. You think it is right for the insurance company to put you back in the same financial condition you were in prior to the injury happening. The insurance company thinks it is right to pay as little as possible, and even totally deny claims if they are able to do so. Your definitions of doing the right thing are not the same.

You need to hire an auto accident attorney who knows personal injury cases, and how to deal with insurance company tactics. We can help. Call the Law Office of Doug Goyen, we have been working on personal injury cases and claims since 1998. Prior to becoming an attorney, Doug Goyen worked as a claims adjuster working injury claims for insurance companies from 1989 to 1998.

By Doug Goyen, douggoyen@goyenlaw.com