Car accidents are an inescapable part of life. You spend so much time travelling for work or fun that you are bound to experience at least one car accident in your life. Car accidents can be disorienting and overwhelming, but it is important to keep your cool. In some cases, you might even need to hire a lawyer to help you work through the damage caused by the accident. It can be hard to know if you need to hire a lawyer or not, so here are some ways to figure it out.
Unclear Liability
In a lot of car accidents, there is clear liability. Traffic camera footage, witness statements, and undisputed liability make for a simple case. When who is at fault is in dispute, that complicates things quickly. If it is unclear and neither party believes they are at fault, then getting the settlement you deserve is going to be much harder. If you find liability is in dispute after a car accident, your best move would be to hire a San Antonio car wreck lawyer.
Low Settlement Offers
Another reason you might want to hire a lawyer to assist you with your car accident claims is if you filed the suit on your own and received a settlement offer that is much too low. If the offer is low, that means you are going to have to work hard to change the offer. This requires a lot of experience, so hiring someone who knows what they are doing is essential.
Lost Wages Claims
Some car accidents mean that you won’t be able to work, especially if your injuries are significant or your job requires a lot of physical exertion. You can file for money to replace the wages you would have earned if you had not been injured, but these can be tricky to file. If you need to include these claims, then you should hire a lawyer to help you navigate through them.
Extenuating Circumstances
Similar to lost wages claims are extenuating circumstances. One example of this would be if you are the primary caregiver to a member of your family (like an elderly parent or disabled spouse) and your car accident is preventing you from caring for them. If you are unable to care for them, that means you have to hire someone else to do it while you are recovering. These complications resulting from a car accident can be hard to prove and often are denied. You should hire a lawyer to help if you are in similar circumstances.
Denial of Claim
If you have filed your claim by yourself and were denied, it is time to hire a lawyer. A denied claim means you have reached the edge of what you can accomplish on your own, and someone with a little more experience and understanding of how to present your case needs to take a look.
Injury to a Minor
If there was a minor in your car at the time of the accident and they received significant injuries, you should also hire a lawyer. Submitting these claims can be a little trickier, and the more people on a claim, the more paperwork there is to do. When the case is more complicated, there is more room for error, so someone who knows what they are doing should file the claim.
Investigation is Required
In any case, where an investigation is required to file the claim, a lawyer should be consulted. Investigations complicate the process and can lead to denied claims if not handled correctly. You can try to navigate through the investigation on your own, but a lawyer will have more resources to be able to help in the investigation and make it work for you.
You Have Been Served
In any instance where the other party involved in the accident has served you with a lawsuit, you should hire a lawyer. This means the other party is serious about making you pay and has already hired a lawyer of their own. If you go into a legal battle by yourself, you will most likely end up paying more than is necessary.
Support and Peace of Mind
Besides all these situations where you will benefit from hiring a car accident lawyer, there are other reasons for doing so. Car accident lawyers deal with these situations all the time. This means they have a lot of experience dealing with a situation that seems overwhelming to you. That gives you peace of mind knowing that you are in good hands, especially if you are trying to recover from injuries. These lawyers also know how frustrating the implications of an accident can be in your personal life. Having someone that understands what you are going through is a rare kind of support that you will need.
Choosing the Right Lawyer
To have this peace of mind, you have to hire a lawyer that is going to work with you. Knowing you found the right lawyer for your case will take the burden off of you so you can focus on healing and getting back to your life.
It would help if you made sure that the lawyer you hire specializes in car accidents. If there are particular circumstances surrounding your case, you want to make sure that they have plenty of experience with cases similar to yours. It would be best if you also tried to find as many customer reviews (not on their website) as possible to make sure that the majority of people liked working with them.
Go in and get a free consultation from them to make sure that communication is easy and you get along with them well. When you have your meeting with them, come prepared with a list of questions to be sure that you get all the information that you need. You especially want to find out about their pricing. Most lawyers will work either off a retainer that you have to pay upfront or they will get a percentage of your settlement if they win your case. You need to make sure you understand all the prices and fees before hiring anyone.