If you are one of the millions of Americans who have suffered an accident requiring medical care each year, you are certainly all too aware of the stresses—physical, emotional, and financial—associated with such unexpected incidents. This is particularly true if your accident has left you with serious bodily injuries, especially ones involving long-term or even permanent disability. Not only will you need to adjust your entire way of living and find ways to progress with your healing, but you may also have to address often significant and unexpected financial challenges arising from this situation.
Thankfully, a personal injury attorney like Ross Ziev and the legal team at Help in Colorado can help. It is always a stressful and demanding process when you have to deal with the economic aspect of injuries resulting from accidents caused due to the negligence of a third party, or those arising, for example, in a work-related context. Although handling negotiations with insurance companies or filing a personal injury claim yourself may sometimes be an option, you will most likely also wonder if you should hire a personal injury lawyer instead.
The answer to this question is as complex as the various types of accidents, the specific circumstances under which each of them arises, and the nature and extent of the ensuing injuries one might suffer. Therefore, you should consult a reputable personal injury lawyer in Colorado before deciding whether you would be better off handling your case on your own.
The Case at Hand
Even though it may be tempting to DIY your personal injury claim, it is often worth hiring an attorney even if it concerns a relatively minor incident. You may think at first that your injuries are not serious, nor are they expected to have long-term or permanent effects on your everyday life. Unfortunately, the full impact of many injuries is not immediately visible or fully diagnosed in the period directly following an accident, so this kind of assumption may prove questionable. Also, a personal injury attorney has extensive experience getting insurance companies to pay what the claim is worth.
When figuring out whether to employ a lawyer to take on your case, one of the first factors you will need to take into account is the severity and effects of your injuries on all aspects of your daily activities. While you could seek appropriate recovery in both cases, a broken toe may be excruciatingly painful and limiting, but it won’t have the same impact on your life as a fractured disc.
Personal injury claims are complex and require specialist skills even in the seemingly most straightforward of cases. Particularly if you have suffered extensive injuries with long-term or permanent effects following an accident, a seasoned personal injury attorney like the legal team at Help In Colorado will be able to estimate, probably with the assistance of trusted experts, how much your injuries are worth. This includes your current and anticipated medical and rehabilitation expenses, as well as how they might affect your future earning capacity.
Key Calculations
Irrespective of the nature and extent of your injuries, you should make an informed and accurate calculation of your related claim. This is something best left in the hands of someone with experience in such matters. Not only is this a complex exercise by nature, but also personal injury claims are almost always accompanied by overwhelming and stress-filled emotions on top of the physical pain you will be experiencing. In our view, this is a time when you should be focusing on healing. There is no reason why you should be struggling with such a critical aspect of your claim rather than leave it in the hands of seasoned professionals.
Also, you may be either drastically underestimating or overestimating the value of your claim. A proper claim calculation is a legally, procedurally, and often scientifically complex exercise. One should take into account not only actual economic losses but also intangible or non-economic harm that you may have endured due to your injuries. For example, you may be experiencing pain and suffering or mental anguish. Or, your injury may have affected your relationships. All this should be taken into account when evaluating your claim in financial terms.
Moreover, some personal injury claims are simpler than others—although “simple” is not a word that usually characterizes such situations. For instance, your case might involve multiple parties, either as co-victims or as co-defendants. You may have been hurt in an accident that caused injury to multiple individuals because of the negligence of a single party or many parties. Or, perhaps, you were the only person hurt but more than one person is liable for causing your accident. In all such instances, things tend to get very complicated, especially when insurance companies step in.
Another possibility is that your case has scientifically complex and potentially controversial aspects, where the assistance of expert witnesses, for example, will be required in order to prove your claim.
Most crucially, things can get very complicated (and often messy) when it comes to calculating and proving your claim in states like Colorado that have a comparative fault system—meaning that the amount of recovery may be reduced if it is found that the victim somehow contributed to their accident. In such cases, defendants will almost certainly attempt to shift the blame to you, the victim.
The Insurance Company Factor
When you file a personal injury claim, regardless of whether you prepared it yourself or with the assistance of an attorney, there is no guarantee that you will be offered the recovery requested. In fact, the opposite is more likely, meaning that you should always be prepared to enter negotiations. Thus, even if you did your best to calculate and file your claim on your own, seeking the assistance of a lawyer may become necessary when the time comes for the defendant(s) to question your claim, i.e. when insurance companies refuse to make a fair settlement offer or, even worse, refuse to make any settlement offer at all.
That is why it is always wise to have a personal injury lawyer represent your interest. The legal team here at Help in Colorado has conducted such challenging negotiations time and time again. In our experience, the higher and more complicated the claim, the more likely it is that the party you will be dealing against will have its own dedicated, expert legal crew to support their case. Facing them without an equally strong and experienced team fighting in your corner will place you at a disadvantage.
It is common for insurance companies to refuse to make a settlement that is fair or not make any at all. In more extreme, though not so rare cases, insurance companies may even engage in bad faith insurance tactics. They may hinder the process by causing delays and not supplying you with adequate information—or even providing you information that is misleading. Or they may request unnecessary or excessive documentation from your end. They may also be aggressive in their pursuit of an unfairly low settlement or dismiss your claim without providing reasonable (or any) answers for doing so.
To be fully aware of what is happening, you must identify such practices from their outset and, most importantly, negotiate in a forceful way to address them effectively. To do so, you will need competent and professional assistance from someone who is both knowledgeable in the field and determined to take on this battle on your behalf.
Knowledge + Expertise x Experience = Power
When considering whether to hire a personal injury attorney for your case or not, consider the following: doing so might not be necessary for all instances. It will, however, let you focus on your recovery while also offering you a better chance at receiving the recovery you deserve.
Instead of pursuing your case on your own and navigating through complex laws, extensive requirements, important deadlines, and considerable amounts of admissible evidence, it makes more sense to have someone with experience, expertise, and practical knowledge of federal and state laws, as well as of how the process and system work, take on your case.
The combined years of experience from our skilled attorneys exponentially increase the chance of success in getting a fair settlement. Such assistance can prove to be invaluable right from the onset of filing your claim, as a personal injury attorney will be able to investigate your case, make an accurate calculation of your claim, gather all necessary evidence, and work with experts, witnesses, and other professionals that may be required to build a strong case. We also provide valuable advice regarding seeking treatment—i.e. discuss if you should go to the doctor regardless of how you feel—and can connect you with financial assistance in the form of medical liens.
All this will place you in a better and stronger position compared to the at-fault party (or parties) from the start. In certain cases, an experienced attorney may be able to point out options for action that you did not even realize were available. For example, you may be able to sue an employer or a third party if you sustained your injury in a work-related accident and were left to believe that your only possible recovery may come through the workers’ compensation system.
Hiring a lawyer may also be necessary if you have decided to file a personal injury claim on your own, only to discover that the other side, typically insurance companies, is out for a serious fight and you will need all the assistance you can get in addressing them on an equal footing. A skilled attorney with an assertive take like Ross Ziev is exactly who you want on your side during tough negotiations, especially if the case ends up going to trial.
The only reason why people may prefer to avoid employing the services of a personal injury lawyer from the start is the factor of cost. However, at Legal Help in Colorado, you don’t pay anything out of your pocket and you don’t owe us anything until we have collected your money. We work on a contingency fee basis, which means that we effectively share the risk with you: if we don’t win your case, we do not get paid. This gives us an extra incentive to work even harder to achieve a favorable outcome for your case, as our fee consists of a fixed percentage of the recovery finally paid to you. This is a double-win situation for both of you and us, as having a lawyer take on your case often leads to a more successful award.
Legal Help in Colorado is a specialized personal injury law firm headquartered in Greenwood Village. We are very conscious of the financial and other concerns faced by injury victims and offer injury victims representation that is innovative, driven, and exceptional. We want you to focus on healing while we take care of the rest.
Initial consultations are free and conducted in absolute confidence. If you are exploring the possibility of having a top-rated personal injury attorney take on your case, contact Legal Help in Colorado online or call us at (303) 351-2567 to discuss your case.