Dallas Injury Lawyer

First, you need an "experienced" personal injury lawyer to handle your case. Do not let a lawyer who has no experience handle your personal injury case. They may "think" it is simple, but you will likely end up needing a personal injury lawyer later on, and if you let someone inexperienced handle your case, you may end up giving up many of your rights and money owed to you for the case. (see: What your injury lawyer will do).

1) Save you precious time: Your personal injury lawyer will reduce the amount of time you spend calling and waiting to talk to insurance company personnel regarding your injury claim or case. How much of my time will this take in dealing with the insurance company? If you hire our attorneys, a personal injury lawyer from our office will keep in contact with the automobile insurance company or liability insurance company regarding your injury claim. You can then avoid the nightmare and frustration of being on hold for hours, and making call after unreturned call to the insurance adjuster handling your claim. Your lawyer will take over contacting the insurance claims departments regarding your personal injury, and we gather the information they need to evaluate your claim and get the best settlement available.

2) What information do I need to give the insurance company to complete their investigation? Investigating the claim: If you don't know the insurance claims business, the claims adjusters can delay and deny your claim, and you will not know if the excuses they give are legitimate or not.

Our office knows what is needed by the insurance company to evaluate and settle your case. We take the guess-work out of it for you. Things can change that complicate what seemed to be a straightforward case. The Dallas injury lawyer we assign to your case has the experience to know what the traps are in your particular case, and know what is needed to prevent things from going wrong. We know how to correct things when things have gone wrong with your insurance company. We know when the insurance company is "dragging their feet" for no reason. You will likely not know the difference and may get extremely frustrated when dealing with your adjuster. The Dallas injury lawyer working your case will know what documents are needed by your insurance company, and where to get that information, and how to get it in the fastest, most efficient way possible.

We investigate, get reports, get statements from witnesses and parties, get records, get bills, and get the proof of who the responsible parties are and what the insurance available is and what sources of recovery are for those responsible parties. The evidence obtained will show all those who will need to pay, and who will be responsible for the damage, injury, and other claims that need to be paid.

3) Should I talk to the liability insurance company if I have an injury claim? If not, why not?: Avoiding harmful admissions: You can sometimes say things innocently that the insurance company can try to spin in a way to make it sound as though you admitted fault, or admitted you weren't hurt, etc. If you say something yourself that is twisted by the insurance company, they can uses it as an "admission" because it was "you" that said it to the adjuster. On the other hand, if your lawyer speaks to the insurance company on your behalf, we can relay what we determine is the relevant information regarding the cause of the collision and injury information to the insurance company. We can relay the information that is relevant to the case, and recognize questions insurers often ask that are designed to help them avoid paying a claim. We can relay your the costs and how the injury has harmed you both physically, psychologically, and financially. We can relay that information in a legal way that ensures you answer the insurance company's questions in a truthful manner, and in a way that avoids stepping into the "traps" insurers often attempt to set for the unwary.

If you speak directly to the insurance company's investigators or adjusters directly, then you are making "admissions" to the insurance company regarding the questions they ask you. Admissions are usable in court against you - if you are the party to the case (the injured or harmed person) then your statements you make are usable against you later. If you accidentally give the wrong number, distance, amount, time, location, or date when they question you regarding something about your case, injury or injury history, they can later use that information against you. Later, when you realize it was really the 15th when you went to the doctor, and not the 14th, the insurance company may try to use your original statement against you and deny part or all of your claim for your mistake.

Your lawyer does not have this legal restriction - since your lawyer is not a party to the case, anything we say is not an "admission" - it is 2nd hand info we pass on, and it is typically correct, but when it is wrong (if you give us a wrong day or time), you are not locked in to that statement as an "admission". We simply tell them we got it wrong, and then give them the correct info, and they cannot use what the lawyer told them as an admission against your case.

Your lawyer will know what information the insurance company needs to process the claim. If your lawyer gets a date wrong when talking to the adjuster, the lawyer can go back later and correct the mistake, because the lawyer is not a party to the case and therefor is not making "admissions" as he talks to the insurance company's investigator or adjuster. Your lawyer cannot make an admission for you - so if a number, distance, amount, time, or date is later found to be in error, we can go back and correct the error and give the insurance company the corrected information. The insurance companies cannot use the "admissions" tactic against your lawyer. If you let your lawyer speak on your behalf in dealing with your claim or case you have more leeway to correct information that may later need correction. If the lawyer makes an error in relaying the wrong information and later discovers he misread, or misheard something, he can go back and correct it without being locked in to the original incorrect information.

4) What are the best places to look to make sure I get a full recovery?: Types of insurance and recoveries available: You may miss the biggest part of your claim recovery because you don't know what coverages to look for or ask for. You want to make sure you receive a full recovery. Often there are multiple types of insurance or responsible parties that may owe part or all of an injury case, claim, or lawsuit. An experienced, smart lawyer will know what to look for in your particular situation.

There may be multiple options available in a particular case to recover money. We investigate what options are available in your case in order to ensure you know all your options and have the ability to maximize whatever recovery you may have available in your injury case or claim.

5) Who can I recover from?: You cannot afford to miss the person who is actually legally responsible for your injury. It may seem obvious to you, but sometimes the law requires a different result that what seems clear to you. There may be more than one party, person, or company that is responsible for your injury or harm. We investigate what caused the injuries, harms, losses, or damages. This is to determine what the law would consider to be "negligence", and then work from there to determine who owes for your personal injury.

A vast majority of auto accident cases are caused by someone, or a combination of people, who make negligent decisions that cause the accident and injury. Examples of negligent decisions that cause accidents and injuries are speeding, running lights or stop signs, changing lanes without ensuring the lane is clear, turning in front of oncoming traffic, drunk driving, driving while distracted by cell phones or smart phones, driving while fatigued and other actions and factors that cause a driver to not act as a reasonable driver would in avoiding collisions with others.

We investigate what you are able to recover on your case and then collect for those injuries, harms, losses, and damages from the resources of those who negligently caused the injury. Lawyers lump all injuries, harms, and losses into a term we call "damages" - which for a lawyer is anything you are entitled to recover in a negligence, accident, or injury case or claim.

6) What can I ask for in compensation for my injury?: Damages that are often recoverable in personal injury cases include the following: Money for pain and suffering and mental anguish,past and future medical bills: the amount of medical bills necessary to treat your injury, both in the past and future, lost wages or earnings, physical impairment, disfigurement, property damage, among other types of damages. See the links below for a more detailed description of these types of damages:

We seek all damages that you are entitled. Examples of other types damages for harms, losses, or injuries that someone suffers from car crash injuries can include the following categories:

Past and future lost earning capacity
Past and future lost income
Past and future physical impairment
Past and future disfigurement
Past and future mental anguish
Past and future pain and suffering
Property damage
Loss of use of your property
Storage
Total loss of property
Diminished value of property
Loss of body member or mental function
Loss of consortium (spouse, parental, child/filial)
Loss of services
Emotional/mental trauma (bystander injury)
Punitive Damages

Other damages that may be recoverable in accident and injury cases include prenatal injury, exemplary damages, prejudgment interest, attorney's fees, and court costs.

7) How much will this cost? What we charge - Contingency Fee: You owe nothing unless we recover for your injury case. This is referred to as a "contingency fee". A personal injury lawyer will charge a percentage of what they can recover for your injury claim, this is the most common way a personal injury attorney charges to represent clients - this is true in Texas and throughout the United States. It is a performance based contract where the lawyer is paid based on how he performs. This places the personal injury lawyer's interests with your interests. The more the attorney can recover for you, the more he recovers for himself. If the personal injury lawyer recovers nothing, you owe no fees.

A common contingency fee in Texas is 1/3 of whatever we can recover for your injury case. For example, if we work 30-60 hours on a case where we believe liability is clear, and later the insurance company locates a bus full of nuns as witnesses who torpedo your case by testifying against you, and then we are unable to recover anything, then you owe nothing. If the insurance company later finds information that shows there was no coverage for this particular case (examples often are: the owner of the insurance claims his car was stolen, or the person driving was an "excluded driver" who was not supposed to be driving the car per the insurance contract, or the other driver missed his insurance payment and the policy was canceled for nonpayment), if there is no coverage due, but yet we put in many hours trying to help on your case, and there is no other way to recover against anyone regarding your case, then you owe nothing - because we are unable to recover anything - 1/3 of zero is zero.

On the other hand, if we can recover $300,000.00 for your injury claim (prior to litigation), then we are typically paid 1/3 of the amount for the attorney fee, which would be $100,000.00 of the $300,000.00 (1/3 of the recovery). If we are only able to recover $30,000.00, then the attorney's fee is $10,000.00 in prelitigation cases.

The better we do for you, the better we do for ourselves. A contingency fee is a performance based contract. If we perform well on your case, we get paid well. If we cannot collect on your case, we don't get paid. This is different from a family law or criminal law case. In those cases, you pay your attorney a "retainer" of many thousands of dollars, and in many cases you periodically are required to deposit additional money into the retainer for your lawyer in those type cases - and win or lose - you pay the attorney - even if you lose, and you don't get your money back in cases with "retainers". Contingency fees for injury cases are a superior method of paying lawyers. It puts your lawyers interest the same as your interest - to recover as much as you are legally owed for your injury claim or case. It forces personal injury lawyers to be selective in the cases we take. We do not want to take a bad case where we will not win (where family or criminal lawyers, or other areas of the law are not as selective. If they have a paying client, they will perform the service whether they think their client will win or not - because they are getting paid regardless).

You owe nothing unless we recover for you. This is referred to as a "contingency fee". Our Dallas injury attorney will charge a percentage of what they can recover for you, this is the most common way a personal injury attorney charges to represent clients - this is true in Texas and throughout the United States. It is a performance based contract where the lawyer is paid based on how he performs. This places the personal injury lawyer's interests with your interests. The more the attorney can recover for you, the more he recovers for himself. If the personal injury lawyer recovers nothing, you owe no fees.

Do not try to handle your own injury case without first consulting a lawyer. People injured in the DFW area need to discuss your case with an experienced Dallas injury lawyer to determine if you need help in your situation. Taking the wrong steps can keep you from recovering the money you will need to cover you in your case.

If you are trying to handle your claim yourself, the auto or liability insurance company for the person who hit or who caused your injury makes no promises regarding paying your claims. They discuss the claim with their lawyers (insurance company lawyers) who tell the insurance adjusters the legal loopholes they can use to avoid paying you. You have no contract with them. They have no legal obligation to you. Their legal obligation is to their insured - to "defend" them, and to pay "if" (and only if) their insured is legally liable for a covered reason. They are looking for a reason to not pay your claim (coverage issues, liability issues, damages issues). Avoiding paying a claim is what adjusters are trained to do first, and to keep checking as the claim goes along, to see if there is a reason not to pay.

Do not think of representing yourself in your Dallas car accident injury claim Do You Need a Lawyer for Your Injury Case Call the Law Office of Doug Goyen at (972) 599 4100 so we can start working on your case today.