Take a guess at what the leading cause of death is in the United States. It’s not heart disease, old age, or cancer. For anyone under the age of 54, the most likely way they’ll pass on is in an auto accident. This stark reality is why many seek the expertise of a car accident lawyer, who helps navigate the legal complexities that often follow such tragic events.
Unfortunately, a car accident is often a complicated legal tug-of-war. It tends to involve several parties involved, with varying levels of blame for the crash. When taking a case to court, you’d be helpless without the assistance of a car accident lawyer.
Lawyers are expensive, though. Is it really worth shelling out a portion of your settlement for costly legal help? The answer is yes.
Read on as we discuss the benefits you stand to gain if you have a lawyer at your side when you file a lawsuit.
A Car Accident Lawyer Charts the Best Course of Action
Sometimes, filing a lawsuit isn’t the best way forward. Instead, you would be better off taking the insurance payout that your provider offers you.
In some situations, it may just be that your greedy insurance company sees fit to bestow you with a reasonable payout. Fighting you in court would be, for them, the more financially risky option.
In other cases, the insurance company of the other party recognizes this case for the liability it will be. They know it’s better to pay you what they owe you. Otherwise, they set themselves up for a lengthy gauntlet of litigation.
A car accident attorney is the only one who might advise you to pursue less invasive methods—view here for an attorney near you. A legal struggle could take months or years. At the end of the day, taking the payout may be the most sensible, practical option on the table.
Identifying Unique Types of Cases
Perhaps the blame extends beyond you and the other party. Occasionally, auto manufacturers have a known mechanical issue in one of their lineups. If there is reason to believe that it caused the accident, you may just have a class action lawsuit on your hands.
Your case may benefit if you work together with others who were involved. Take, for example, a multi-car pile-up. If there was a single culprit, a case may be more successful when you file in tandem.
Deciding Whether You Have a Case in the First Place
It may just be that your case has no solid legal footing. For example, a typical he-said-she-said fender bender. Without concrete video evidence, you are going off of hearsay.
It’s crucial to know when to give up before the fight even begins. Lawyers can tell you when your case might be in vain. Imagine the thousands of dollars and hours you would save by foregoing a fruitless case in the first place.
They Help With Proving Your Injuries
There are a ton of myths surrounding injuries in a legal case. Heeding public superstition and outdated paradigms might not just ruin your case’s potential. It could endanger your long-term health, too.
Seeking Immediate Medical Attention
Myth number one that many people mistakenly believe is that they should delay seeking help. As the saying goes, you should wait until you get compensation before heading to the doctor. This is false.
Instead, you should be dropping by the hospital ASAP—especially if you have significant injuries. The reason why? You need a medical paper trail.
If the judge can’t tie your injury to the crash in question, it looks like a pre-existing condition. Your opposition could easily attribute the injury to something else. Bruising could be the result of falling down the stairs as much as a collision.
To make matters worse, you now have an exacerbated medical condition in need of more extreme treatment. You need to get medical treatment as soon as possible after a crash. This is just one of many pieces of advice only a lawyer can give you.
Getting Compensation for Medical Bills
Of course, the end goal is to treat your injuries fully. Yet the bills will stack up the longer a court case drags on. Obtaining compensation can be tricky before the verdict is in.
Lawyers can help you find the most viable avenue to get coverage. Whether it’s from the courts, the insurance companies, or other sources, they can help you recover.
Most importantly, they can get you the right amount of coverage. Too often, insurance companies try to cheap out on you and fork over a paltry sum. Lawyers can help you fight tooth and nail for proper, all-encompassing compensation.
They Help Establish a Clear Document Trail
Proving your injuries is just part of the equation. Next comes showing that they are consistent and that they have a lasting impact on your life. Going to the doctor just to get their sign-off may not be proof enough for a judge.
A lawyer encourages you to attend all of your doctor appointments for accident-related injuries. They make sure that you are asking your doctor for the right tests, such as bloodwork and X-rays. Having the proper medical documents will be a game-changer in your case.
Another factor to consider is lost wages. The average person, after a severe injury, has no choice but to take time off work. They may have to quit their job or ask for a temporary reprieve.
Whichever avenue they go through, it results in the same: loss of earning potential. With a lawyer’s help, you can make this all work to your advantage later on. They can help you obtain complete compensation for your lost wages during the course of the injury—and the trial.
They Help Gather Evidence
Have you ever watched those old crime dramas? A common trope is to see an eyewitness statement be enough to put the defendant in prison. However, this is one of those old legal myths that persists to this day.
Hard, irrefutable physical evidence is worth far more. Human memory, on the other hand, is an incredibly poor form of proof. Science proves again and again that it becomes unreliable not long after the event.
Understandably, one of the most important parts of your case is finding undeniable evidence. A lawyer can help you obtain this evidence, even after the fact.
Dashcam Footage
Dashcams are everywhere these days, silently recording crashes in a non-biased, bipartisan way. They are the gold standard when it comes to moving violations. With them, it’s often open-and-shut who is responsible for an accident.
A dash cam can easily swing your case towards a favorable verdict for you. The problem is, you might not have one, nor does the defendant.
Lawyers can speak to witnesses and others who were present that day. They can find clever ways to obtain footage of the accident. If not from a dashcam, and then from nearby traffic lights or CCTV footage of a roadside business.
Witness Testimonies
While witness testimony is far less reliable than dashcam footage, it still has a role to play in the courtroom. Gathering witness testimony can help set the stage for the crash. It helps to gauge who was doing what when it happened.
Witness testimony can often provide insight into the emotions and the context of the moment. With this information, a judge has a better idea of how to interpret things.
Your lawyer can help speak to all involved and get viable witness statements for the courtroom. With the right witnesses, that proves your side of things.
They Understand Law Better Than You Do
It goes without saying that the law is an incredibly complex organism of statutes and amendments. There’s a good reason why lawyers study for years, often attending top universities; why they need to pass the challenging bar exam to practice.
Long story short, it’s easy to twist the law in one’s favor. Lawyers study all the potential arguments that the defendant could make against you. They then plan their own counterarguments with carefully-crafted reasoning to sway the judge.
It’s a very complicated game filled with interpretations and legal precedents. Lawyers can make their case based on a specific law. Or, they may make their case on the basis of a Supreme Court ruling, such as with case law.
They Can Argue Your Case Before the Judge
Making your case in a court of law is no small undertaking. It requires a number of skills, many of which lawyers practice over the course of years. You need to be capable of debating, but also keeping cool in the face of opposition.
There is a cadence to which a lawyer will make a case. They may play their words off the defendant, the judge, or the jury. Rather than saying things outright, they may lead the defendant to a weak spot before they pounce.
This strategy will be invaluable to your case when the time comes.
They Can Keep a Cool Head
A key to a successful case is the ability to remain levelheaded throughout the course of a trial. It’s totally normal that you feel emotionally overwhelmed, especially when dealing with a recalcitrant defendant. But in the court of law, cooler heads always prevail.
Instead, you can let your lawyer or attorney handle the legal arguments in your stead. After all, this case is not as personal for them as it is for you. That makes it easier for them to remain dispassionate and emotionally detached.
There’s a good chance you could have a breakdown or an outburst. Lawyers, on the other hand, train themselves never to fall into that trap. They can stay even-tempered when you, for whatever reason, are incapable of doing so.
A car accident lawsuit is no walk in the park. At the lowest threshold, you can expect a formal verdict after a couple of weeks—court appointments included. At the high end, some people spend months or even years fighting their case.
It’s understandably difficult to remain resilient in the face of these odds. Especially when you are recovering from injuries and transitioning back into the workplace.
Your at-home life may be turbulent. There may be financial troubles, such as losing your employment or worse. The injuries themselves may have taken a toll on your mental and physical function—and your relationships.
Think of a lawyer as a touchstone that keeps you and everything else in check. They prevent things from spiraling out of control. And when you need emotional assurance, they can provide it.
They Win If You Win
The biggest concern people have about lawyers is their cost. They imagine a contingency where they have lost their case, or gotten an unsatisfactory settlement. In this imagined scenario, they see themselves investing a small fortune in a lawyer who, ultimately, fails.
However, many people are not aware of the term “contingency fee.” In layman’s terms, this means that lawyers do not collect payment unless they win. Naturally, this incentivizes them to do their best job—if they lose, they get nothing.
Even better, this contingency fee is often just a percentage of your settlement. In an ideal scenario, you pay nothing out of pocket at the end of a trial. The lawyer simply collects their fee from your winnings, leaving you with the rest to handle bills and other finances.
Hire a Lawyer for Your Car Accident Case
A car accident lawyer is a vital component when it comes to winning your car accident case. Many people get spooked by the thought of having to spend so much on legal services—despite the fact that it’s their constitutional right. Rest assured, this is one of the best decisions you can make for your case, and for yourself.
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