
- What Do I Do If I Am In An Auto Accident?
- Types of Automobile Accident
- Automobile Insurance
- Hiring An Attorney For Your Auto Claim
- Do I Really Need An Attorney For Every Potential Claim?
- The Attorney’s Contingency Fee
- What Are The Expected Attorney’s Fees and Costs?
- Working With Your Attorney
- Making A Claim Against An Insurance Company
- Litigation and Trial Of An Auto Case
- Settlement of an Auto Accident Case
- Automobile Accident Facts and Statistics
Hiring An Attorney For Your Auto Claim
Before you hire an attorney, it is important that you understand your legal representation. All too often, victims run out and hire an attorney without fully comprehending what is involved in choosing, working with or even compensating their attorneys.
Not every lawyer that works for a contingency fee charges clients the same fee or handles the expenses of the case in the same way. Thus, it is important to understand how your lawyer does these things at the beginning of the realtionship. This can avoid misunderstandings and even conflict later.
Moreover, there are certainly instances where you may not even need a lawyer to handle a claim which you can handle yourself. In such instances, you can save the approximate 33 1/3% attorney’s fee without compromising your ability to fully recover for your injuries.
Understanding how the costs of the case must be reimbursed is also important. Some lawyers require the reimbursement of costs even if the outcome is negative. Most only recover costs if a recovery is obtained. You need to know what the policy of your lawyer is on this subject.
You also need to understand the nature and extent of expected expenses that your automobile accident case will involve. If accident reconstruction experts, medical experts or other experts are needed, how much will they cost? Will proceeding to trial cost more than if we settle now?
In those instances where your damages are more significant, or the issues are more involved an attorney will need to handle the matter. However, your cooperation, input and communication of information will play a major role in the successful outcome of the case. For instance, the defense lawyer will attempt to put you and your life on trial hoping that some unfornuate event of your past will cause a jury to award you little or nothing.
Accurately communicating your background, history of any prior claims, and history of prior medical conditions to your attorney can make a huge difference. Most lawyers can prepare for information that may seem bad. It is only when your lawyer gets surprised by information that a client knows and fails to communicate that the case suffers a serious blow.
In this age of information, there is really no excuse for a lawyer and his client to lack communication and a basic understanding of what will be involved in the representation.