Do You Need a Personal Injury Attorney?

To determine if you need a personal injury attorney, consider the following five factors. You will want to consider the below factors in their totality, though, because one may or many not apply but that won’t necessarily mean you need or don’t need an attorney––that factor should be assessed against the other factors to confirm whether or not it’s in your best interests to retain a personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles.

Liability

How certain is liability in your case? To be entitled to compensation in California, the other party must be at fault, meaning his or her actions directly caused your injury. For example, if you are in a car accident with another driver where that driver ran a traffic light and there is video and testimony to account for the same, then you probably have a clear link between the at-fault party, the injury, and liability. On the other hand, imagine the at-fault party was driving in the course of his or her employment, so the employer could be held vicariously liable for the accident. With the latter set of facts, things just got more complicated.

So, when liability is easily ascertained and readily provable, you may not need a personal injury attorney for liability determination purposes … unless one or more of the other factors indicate the claim may be a little more complicated than initially thought.

Severity

How severe is the injury? If you sustain an injury and seek medical care, just how extensive is that injury? For example, the floor at a grocery store was wet because an employee just mopped, but no sign was put up to warn customers. A child accompanying a customer slipped, fell, and suffered a fractured wrist. Was the fracture minor, requiring a cast only for a few months? If so, then the injury is simple enough. On the other hand, was it a growth plate that was fractured? If so, then the fracture just got a little more complicated with the potential of life-long complications and the need for extended physical therapy.

If the injury is not severe and does not require minimal medical care, you probably don’t need an attorney for handling any medical bills or liens. Anything more than a simple injury, however, requires more consideration, especially if the injury requires therapy, rehabilitation, or other long-term treatment permanent care.

Disruptions

Was your day-to-day life disrupted much? Consider the broken wrist or the car accident examples mentioned above: did you only have to go to the hospital and then maybe a checkup or two afterwards? Were you able to dress and feed yourself? Were you able to go to work or school or continue your normal daily routine? Or, if you couldn’t go to work immediately after the accident, how long were you off work? Was it a week, a month, a year, or longer? How much of a disruption to your life did the injury cause?

Of course, the least amount of disruption means you may not need a lawyer for this purpose, but anything more will require a lawyer. Disruptions of daily life is a significant factor in non-economic damages. It’s hard for a person ill-equipped in the law and persuasive negotiations to challenge and argue against insurance adjusters trained to deny or avoid not only non-economic damages but economic damages as well. Only a skilled personal injury attorney can get the most for you in terms of full reimbursement of your damages. So, the more disruption, the more the need for an attorney.

So, if your life didn’t change dramatically after an injury, you’ll receive less than a person’s whose life changed dramatically, but you’ll need an attorney to put forth smart, persistent, logical arguments for you.

Emotional Distress and Mental Trauma

Suffering physical pain or a physical injury is one thing, but depending on the extent of the injury or the circumstances of the accident, the victim may suffer emotional distress or mental trauma. This can include things like:

• Post-traumatic stress syndrome (e.g., caused by a horrific dog attack)
• Depression (e.g., caused by a catastrophic injury)
• Mental anxiety (e.g., caused by a misdiagnosis)
• Humiliation (e.g., caused by a slanderous attack).

Emotion distress and mental trauma can seriously impact a person’s quality of life and may require mental health treatment for months or years. All of this is compensable, but proving it can sometimes be difficult. On your own, you will have a harder time. An experienced personal injury attorney in Los Angeles will have the insight and resources to conduct a thorough investigation and competently pursue full damages. The evidence must thoroughly support the claim because insurance adjusters are trained to challenge these claims and to blame it on other incidents in your life as opposed to the alleged accident. So the more emotional or mental harm, the more likely you are to need an attorney.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

Studies show that victims of personal injuries win larger awards when represented by an attorney. This is a good thing, but you must also take into consideration the expenses that go into a strong case. There will be clerical work, investigative costs, possible witness depositions, and––among other things––technical costs. The more likely your case is to go to litigation, the more costs there will be. But there’s a catch: your case is more likely to go to litigation the more complex it is, so you’ll need a lawyer. Plus, there’s one more layer to this: deep-pocketed insurance adjusters or other defendants will have the funds available to squeeze you dry especially if you do not have representation. This is a common tactic used to reduce or deny a settlement.

Simpler cases may seem to not require as much in the way of resources due to limited costs associated with the claim and less of a need for an attorney. Nevertheless, you may not know the actual value of your case, as well as how to properly develop and present your case to insurance companies. In either case, it is always helpful to have a free consultation with an experienced and professional attorney.