Hiring a Lawyer Can Help With Your Car Accident Claim

What Will My Car Accident Lawyer Do?

While much depends on the specifics and the complexity of your car accident case, in general a lawyer can:

• communicate with the other driver’s insurer
• obtain the necessary evidence with respect to fault for the accident
• organize your medical records and bills
• communicate with your health care providers to obtain missing records
• work with your doctors to make sure they provide the medical information you need so that you can prove damages in your claim
• organize and present the evidence in order to prove liability and damages
• negotiate with lien holders on your claim (such as health, disability, or workers’ compensation insurers) to potentially reduce the amount of those liens, and
• negotiate a satisfactory settlement with the insurance adjuster or defense attorney.

Let’s look at a couple of these things in-depth.

Communicating with the Other Driver’s Insurer

In any personal injury case, your lawyer will open up a line of communication with the insurance adjuster for the other party (or parties) involved. The adjuster has the pocketbook, and so it is critical for a plaintiff’s lawyer to have good communications and a good relationship with the adjuster.

Obtaining Necessary Evidence of Liability

A good lawyer can help obtain all of the evidence that you will need to prove liability in a car accident claim. Although you may have already taken photographs of the accident scene, your lawyer will probably go back to the scene him/herself to see what it looks like. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, actually seeing the scene can be worth a thousand pictures.

The lawyer will make sure to get all of the accident or police reports in the case and will often speak with the investigating police officers and witnesses. A good lawyer will leave no stone unturned when it comes to obtaining evidence of liability. Learn more about proving fault for a car accident.

Obtaining Necessary Evidence of Damages

This is where a good lawyer can be essential to your case, especially when you’ve suffered significant car accident injuries.

It is critical to obtain all documentation related to your injuries, but it isn’t always easy to get your hands on those records and bills from health care providers. Although the records are technically yours, and you have an absolute right to them, sending medical records to patients and lawyers is just not a health care provider’s first priority.

Negotiating With Lien Holders

If you received benefits from a health, disability, or workers’ compensation insurer, that insurer will have a lien on your claim. A lien means that the lien holder gets paid before you do, out of any settlement or judgment you receive. A good lawyer will work with the lien holder to try to get the lien holder to reduce its lien. This is important work. Every dollar less that the lien holder takes is one more dollar that goes into your pocket.

Negotiating With Insurers/Defendants

Negotiation is a very specific skill (some might even call it an art). A personal injury lawyer is always going to be far better at settling a car accident case than a layperson would be. A good lawyer knows how much the case is worth and knows how to work the case and conduct the negotiations in order to arrive at the best outcome for the client.

SPEAK WITH AN ATTORNEY

After completing the above steps, you should consult an attorney about your incident.