If you have been injured in an accident caused by the negligence of another individual, you have the right to file a personal injury claim. In situations when you have sustained only a minor injury or if your vehicle has suffered negligible damage, it can be quite simple to handle such claims on your own. However, in cases where there is evidence of major injury or extensive vehicle damage, the legal process can get quite complex. In such situations, hiring the services of a skilled New York City personal injury lawyer is the best way to ensure that you get the maximum compensation that you deserve.
If you have been injured in an accident caused by the negligence of another individual, you have the right to file a personal injury claim. In situations when you have sustained only a minor injury or if your vehicle has suffered negligible damage, it can be quite simple to handle such claims on your own. However, in cases where there is evidence of major injury or extensive vehicle damage, the legal process can get quite complex. In such situations, hiring the services of a skilled New York City personal injury lawyer is the best way to ensure that you get the maximum compensation that you deserve.
How are New York Personal Injury Claims Processed?
When you decide to pursue a personal injury claim in New York, here are the steps you need to take as part of the legal process.
- First, you need to collect evidence of your injury and any other damages you sustained in the accident.
- Next, you have to calculate the worth of your case and arrive at a dollar value for your loss.
- After this comes to the step of drafting and sending out a demand letter.
- You need to communicate with the insurer regarding the losses you suffered.
- Next comes the filing of the personal injury complaint using the specified forms and providing the supporting documents as per legal requirements within the specified time.
- The defendants will then be served and their response will be received.
- The stage after this involves mediation and negotiation in an attempt to reach a settlement with the party at fault.
- If the mediation fails, you may then choose to take your case to a court trial and argue it in front of a jury and wait for their verdict.
How Can Hiring a Knowledgeable NYC Car Accident Lawyer Help My Claim?
The legal processing of an injury claim is a complicated procedure. To start with, there are limits on how much time you have to file a lawsuit, and this is called the statute of limitations. Deadlines will vary depending on the nature of your personal injury claim.
Next, you have to know which forms to fill out and you must be able to complete them without any errors. You also need to know which documents to file to support your claim. It is certainly possible to research all these details, but it will take you a lot of time to understand everything and then do all that is necessary as per legal guidelines with such perfection that your case does not get rejected on a legal technicality.
A good New York car accident lawyer would have authoritative knowledge when it comes to personal injury law. They would have spent years handling such cases and winning compensation for their clients. They have access to experts and other resources that are necessary to build you a strong case that cannot be faulted by the other party’s insurer or even by a jury at trial. In that sense, engaging an accomplished personal injury lawyer is more likely to ensure that you receive the greatest possible compensation.
Personal Injury Lawyers Are Experts in Calculating Damages
When you file a personal injury claim, you are eligible to receive damages for the medical bills associated with hospitalization and also for long-term treatment and therapy. The wages you lost by missing work due to your injury are also factored in, as is the pain and suffering you had to undergo for no fault of your own.
In more serious accidents when the injuries are life-altering, it’s vital to consider the expenditure you will have to incur throughout your lifetime on your medical treatment, and also the potential loss of income. Performing such an assessment can be quite difficult for most of us but a personal injury lawyer is an expert who can come up with the most accurate figures for the damages to which you are entitled under the law.
An Experienced New York City Personal Injury Lawyer Helps You Focus on Recovering Your Health
After being injured in a serious accident, it is quite likely that you will have a lot of pain and that you need dedicated care and enough rest. When you are already low on energy, it can be quite difficult to find the drive to pursue complicated legal procedures on your own initiative. In such situations, it may seem much easier to forget about pursuing a personal injury claim and focus on simply regaining your health. However, you need to remember that you don’t need to do everything on your own if you hire an expert lawyer.
Personal injury attorneys in New York are professionals who have spent years in studying and applying the law. They know how to competently handle the legal processes involved in injury claims and what seems very difficult for an average citizen can be the simplest task for them. So, when you hire an expert lawyer, you can focus your entire attention and energy on your recovery process, confident in the knowledge that your legal interests are being cared for by your personal injury lawyer.
Role of Lawyers in Personal Injury Damages: What the Data Says
The Insurance Research Council conducted a study of auto accidents caused due to negligence of the other vehicle driver or a government body or the vehicle manufacturer. They compared the amount won in compensation by injury victims who hired an attorney with that won by victims who handled the legal process on their own.
Not surprisingly, they found that settlement compensation was at least 3.5 times greater for clients who used the services of an attorney. It’s critical to note that this data applies to the amount received after payment of the attorney’s fees. In other words, using the services of a personal injury lawyer can be the smartest thing you can do to maximize the damages you win.
Insurance Companies Will Not Intimidate a Personal Injury Lawyer
When you file a personal injury claim on your own, you may have done everything by the book and still, find that you got a raw deal on the settlement. Insurance company adjusters have years of experience in using all means possible to reduce the settlement amount. They have been known to trap or intimidate injury victims into accepting blame for the accident.
Insurance companies will contest your doctor’s assessment of your injury and cast doubts on the impacts of your injury. They may resort to putting you under surveillance and twist the information you post on your social media to create suspicion about your credibility. But when you hire a professional NYC personal injury lawyer, it immediately sends a message to the insurance company that you are someone they cannot mess with.
They will probably not dare to use any of their typical manipulative tactics with an attorney who can create trouble for them. This is one of the most important reasons why a majority of personal injury victims engage the services of a New York attorney to handle their injury claims.
Settlement or Trial: An Experienced NY Personal Injury Lawyer Can Get You Maximum Compensation
Data shows that most personal injury victims opt for a settlement with the insurance company rather than pursuing their case in court. If you decide that you do not want to take your case to a trial, an attorney can help you skillfully negotiate with the insurance company to get the maximum compensation to which you are entitled.
However, if you do decide to take your case to court, the role of the attorney is even more crucial in helping you build a strong case with the right evidence and testimony from medical and financial experts and accident reconstruction specialists. With their extensive experience in the field of personal injury claims, the attorney can also guide you on the most sensible path to choose in recovering damages.
Choose an Experienced NYC Personal Injury Attorney to Maximize Your Settlement Amount
When you have suffered an injury, only you can know the extent of pain and suffering that you have to deal with. However, there are ways in which some of your actions can be misinterpreted by the other side to reduce the settlement amount you receive.
For example, perhaps you declined medical treatment immediately after your injury because you thought it was something minor but had to see a doctor later because your condition worsened. Now, this can be used by the other party to insinuate that the injuries for which you are claiming compensation were caused by some other incident and not due to the accident in which they were involved.
Or perhaps you put out a social media post that showed you at a party after your accident. This can be twisted out of context by insurance adjusters to reduce the amount awarded in damages. At Rosenberg, Minc, Falkoff & Wolff, LLP, our committed personal injury lawyers have the necessary expertise to make sure that such mistakes don’t deprive you from getting the compensation you truly deserve.
To know more about how we can help you get the maximum compensation from the at-fault party, speak to us today at 212-344-1000 or contact us online for a free, no-obligation case review.