Having any kind of issue or a problem where you need a lawyer and a long time spent in court is never a good thing. As you can see today, we are discussing personal injury claims and the time it takes to settle one.
The duration of a personal injury case is the most common case every lawyer gets the moment their client decides to go with them. This is normal, we all value our time and most of us believe that if something is to be dragged down to infinity, just isn’t worth our time. When it comes to personal injury cases, you can’t look at that this way. If you were involved in a situation where you ended up with any kind of injury dealt with you, then time is not of the essence, the truth and justice are what is important.
No matter how good of a lawyer you get, with how much experience and expertise. The legal team behind them and you are just some factors that can influence the flow of the case, but the time needed for a personal injury claim to be settled depends only on the type of case you have. Most lawyers will tell you it can be anywhere from six weeks to more than two years. This sometimes seems a bit intimidating, but today we will try to explain a bit just why is that so. Thanks to lawyerup.co we can tell you all about this, at least in general.
If you come into any personal injury lawyer’s office and ask how long will it take to settle your case all of them will say depending on the case, on your situation and on plenty of different variables that constantly affect the flow of the process. Now to most this could sound like a lot of twisting and hard balling by the lawyers but the truth behind that is they are right. When it comes to law and lawyers some information is more important than others, some can be found during the process, some that you thought were crucial to your case can easily be dismissed and so on. There are plenty of things that can happen to both ease and complicate your case.
The best-case scenario that you can get is a clear-cut liability case where you have been in a rear-ender and the defendant admitted that it was their fault. After that you went to the hospital, you sustained significant injuries typical for that type of accident and you got $40,000.00 in medical bills, while the defendant has only $30,000.00 in medical. What lawyers do is usually collect those bills and submit them for Stowers demand within about six weeks and have your check for that within about four weeks after that.
If you have a case that is not a serious injury one and you need to go to treatment where you will be subject to treatment for four to six weeks, for instance, because there were people who needed treatments for well over a year, your case will hardly be resolved until you finish your treatments. Once you are done with those your lawyer will begin the process of collecting medical bills and records and they will very nicely compile all those in a form of a demand for the insurance company to review. What you also need to know is that very often these medical providers aren’t too quick with their records and provide your lawyers with said ones. This means that after you finish treatments it can take one to a few months just to get all the necessary paperwork from the institution so your lawyers can prepare everything up. Lawyers also have to be careful when compiling that claim and they will take time to make sure that they have everything prepared and listed because this is the only time an insurance company will make a full evaluation unless you file a suit later on. So, after you have finished everything after your lawyers gathered all the info and after they sent it to the insurance company you have to give them a deadline to review the medical bills and records. Depending on the law firm and the general practices in your place those can take from two or three weeks to six tops.
After that deadline period has ended you will get an offer and start something called the negotiation process. Now, this is another factor that influences the longevity of your settlement claim because a key to a good negotiation process is to be patient. Pushing an insurance company constantly on giving you an offer gives them room to think that you want to settle this as fast as possible, that you need money and that you will take any sum they offer. What they do next is to lowball you as long as they possibly can. Patience is the key here and every good lawyer will tell you this. It is nice to come to the end of an entire process and it is nice to almost see the money you are going to get, but constantly pushing and forcing the hand of the insurance company means that you will possibly get a lot less than you should.
Another thing that a good personal injury lawyer will make possible is to settle the case pre-litigation. This means that you will not have to file a suit against them. This is another thing that impacts the period of your injury claim. If you end up having to file a lawsuit against them then depending on a free estimate of any lawyer you are looking at least another year before you can resolve your case and collect your money. Having a big court lawsuit means a lot more complications and a lot more lawyers getting involved which greatly impacts the duration of the entire process. You will have to sue the person or the company that caused the accident, then the insurance company behind them will hire them a lawyer and then there is a period where lawyers exchange written discoveries which take a couple of months, then with the lawyers’ busy schedules you will wait another couple of months until you get time to give your deposition and so on…
As you can see plenty of factors influence the flow and the duration of the personal injury claim. From what we wrote in this article, we hope that at least in some part you have a bit brighter picture to why sometimes, something so simple can take so long. You also need to know that even the most straightforward things get complicated and the reasons for that are plenty.
