Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer vs Not Hiring a Lawyer and Fending For Yourself

Whenever a person is involved in an accident that causes injury the best way to get a fair and decent amount of compensation is to hire a personal injury lawyer. Without a seasoned lawyer to represent and protect the client in a case that involves a substantial amount of money, the insurance company, or money holder from the other side of the argument will have the upper hand.

What is Personal Injury?

A personal injury can vary in definition depending on the circumstances of the situation. Whenever a person becomes personally injured as a result from the negligence or carelessness of another person or a company it is considered a personal injury.

For example, if you are in a grocery store, shopping for whatever it is that you are looking for at that particular time, you slip on some oil that had been left on the floor and you become injured. You could be entitled to file a personal injury lawsuit and receive compensation for your injuries.

You were on their property and there was no warning of the spill in sight. You were completely unaware of any danger that was present. The grocery store could be held liable for the expenses you encounter as a result of the injury.

What is a Personal Injury Lawyer?

A personal injury lawyer is a lawyer that has been adequately educated and tested in order to pass the bar and become a practicing lawyer. Since they have extensive knowledge in the personal injury field, they choose to base their practice in that area.

Every day there are literally millions of people that suffer from injuries that were caused by other people not paying attention. Whether it is an automobile accident, a bicycle accident, a walking accident, or whatever…people become injured by other people and many of these injuries are serious enough to cause the injured person to visit the hospital, lose the ability to earn a living, and be subjected to traumatic circumstances that cause them mental harm.

When injuries of this magnitude happen many of the people that are responsible for them fail to admit their faults in the accident because they do not want to pay for the damages. This is where it helps to have a lawyer to bring them to court and get them to pay for the problems that they caused.

Hospitalization Injuries and Bad Practices

What happens much more than it ever should is that a person will become injured in an accident that was caused by the negligence of another and wind up in the hospital with serious injuries. The serious injuries are one aspect of the situation, but what’s even worse is a representative for the insurance company that is covering the people responsible for the accident will show up and start asking questions. There is no law that prevents an insurance agency from asking questions. However, there should be.

The visit with the questions is in no way a gesture of care and concern for the injured person. It is a tactic to see how much information they can glean from the person in order to protect themselves from having to be responsible for the costs of the injury.

The injured party does not have to answer any questions, but they do not know that because the representative will not tell them.

Any answers that they provide the representative can be used to defend the case of the defendant, and to put holes in the case of the injured.

When a person is injured as the result of negligence, there is no way to tell how long they will be in the hospital, how long they will be without work, whether or not there will be permanent damage, or  the extent of the mental stress behind the accident.

When a representative asks questions while the patient is under duress, or under the influence of pain medication they may not remember the details of the accident correctly, or they may say things that they mean to say.

The Truth About Insurance Agencies

Insurance companies exist for only one reason: To make money. They are not there to help anybody, to care for anybody’s family, to give anybody anything. They are only there to make a whole bunch of money.

An insurance company can have millions of people paying them upwards of $100 per month for coverage. In fact, a person purchases a bond for a certain amount of money and choses to pay monthly. If the customer does not pay, they do not get coverage. If there are no accidents during the time allotted for the bond, then the insurance company gets to keep that money.

With all of this money they are able to pay for their own legal teams that will go to court and fight for them in order to minimize the amount of money that they will need to pay out for each case that goes to court.

When it comes to making sure that a person that has been injured as the result of negligence of one of their clients, they will go out of their way to minimize the injury, the amount of the costs of hospital bills, the amount of suffering that the injured suffered, and the amount of time that they missed working. They will do their best to pay a fraction of the total costs of the whole losses.

The Help of an Attorney

Most attorneys will tell their clients to never answer questions unless they have a lawyer on their behalf present. The reason for this is that they know that the other side will do anything that they can to be liable for less money.

If a person listens to the advice of the lawyer for the insurance company they will undoubtedly allow themselves to be cheated out of a large amount of money. When the insurance company knows that the injured person does not have an attorney, they will go in for the kill before the injured person knows what to do. They will come in with smooth words that seem so reassuring and compassionate. Each and every one of these sweet words will be to direct the injured person into a place where they feel like their injuries and their lost wages are not so bad and that they don’t need a hefty compensation.

What an accident injury attorney will do for the client is show up and not allow the other side of the argument to manipulate the injured person into accepting less than what they are entitled to. The pain of the injury alone merits enough compensation to help comfort the person for years to come. On top of the pain there are the hospital charges, the loss of wages due to work loss, expenses for hiring people to deal with chores around the home, care for pets, children, etc.

An attorney will gather up all of the facts, the financial numbers, the evidence, and everything else that will be of use to the case of the injured and go to bat against the court to make sure that the insurance agency does not skimp on compensation or bully the injured into accepting a lesser amount.

Conclusion

A person going to court alone to face the system is like a knight going into battle without armor. As altruistic as the court system seems to be, they can only go by the facts that are presented to them by the parties involved. If all they have is the facts from the opposing party, there is no defense, and whatever turns up is going to favor the opposing side. If the injured has some facts and evidence of their own, they will have a better chance of getting enough money out of the deal to cover all of their costs and leave them in a favored financial state for a long enough time to recover and get back on track.