Have you or a loved one been severely injured due to another’s negligence? Read these 3 personal injury tips, then call our Boise attorneys.
Choosing a Personal Injury Attorney
You probably wouldn’t be looking at this if you didn’t have questions about how you should pick a personal injury attorney. Who should my personal injury attorney be? There’s a process that we would recommend that you go through in picking your Idaho personal injury attorney. That process requires investigation. Spend some time looking around.
Certainly, don’t just respond to TV advertising or billboard advertising. See if you really have a trial attorney that you’re looking for. Not every personal injury attorney is a trial attorney.
A trial attorney is somebody who is not scared of the courtroom, wants to go to the courtroom, and is perfectly happy to go to the courtroom. Why does that matter? Because the insurance companies know the difference. They know if a lawyer is willing to go to the courtroom, then that case is going to get full value in resolution, whether it’s after trial or in settlement. Many cases do settle. That’s important, but one of the ways you make cases settle is by going to trial on other cases.
What do you want to look for in that trial attorney? You want somebody with success in the courtroom. Do your research. Look at their resumes, look at what they’ve done. You want somebody who’s been recognized by many of the organizations that acknowledge attorneys. There’s a very traditional one called Martindale-Hubbell. What’s the lawyer’s rating there? AV is the highest.
There are other public rating systems: Best Lawyers Ratings, Avvo Ratings, many other standards. There is one organization, and we’re proud that we have a member of that organization in our firm, Charlie Hepworth, but there’s one organization of the Top 100 trial lawyers in the country. It’s called the Inner Circle of Advocates. You have to be a great lawyer to be in that.
Is the person a member of the American College of Trial Lawyers? Are they members of AAJ? Do they teach other lawyers how to do lawyering? All of these things are out there to be found. Spend your time on the Internet looking at these things when you’re identifying a personal injury lawyer for your claim in Idaho.
Find a lawyer who knows what they’re doing in the courtroom. Find a lawyer who actually spends their time in injury cases. You don’t want a general practice lawyer. You don’t want a business lawyer. You don’t want somebody who does wills and estates sometimes and does divorces sometimes. What you want is a personal injury trial lawyer with results.
If you want to talk more about it and what we’ve accomplished at our firm, just give us a call. Anyone of us will talk to you. We’ll tell you if you’re looking at good lawyers and we’ll tell you the people to stay away from, too. Pick the right trial lawyer because the trial lawyer you pick for your personal injury claim in Idaho can make a big difference in your life and in your future.
When to Settle a Personal Injury Case
That is a very simple question that has a very complicated answer because there’s so much that goes into the consideration of what the value of a personal injury case is. There’s a lot that goes into the basic decision that needs to be made by the injured person as to whether they should or should not settle.
If you’re represented by me personally or anybody else in my law firm, then it’s our responsibility to be your voice in talking to the other side. It’s also our responsibility to gather all the information we can that is relevant to the value of your claim, like are there going to be future medical expenses? Is this injury going to be permanent? What’s that going to look like for the rest of the person’s life? We gather all that information and then sit down with you to provide you with all of the information necessary to make an informed and intelligent choice.
It is your choice. We have, of course, a lot of experience settling cases or otherwise taking them to trial when necessary.
The question of whether you’re getting a reasonable value in the settlement or not really boils down to what a jury would do if you went to Idaho jury trial. That’s the type of thing for which there is no magic answers. It’s hard to predict. Nobody knows the answer to that. The other side doesn’t know it; nobody does because you haven’t even met your jury yet.
What it requires, if you want to get the maximum value of what is a reasonable, and just, and fair amount of money to satisfy your claim, is having the best legal team on your side. The other side is aware of this. If you don’t want to settle it, that we’re perfectly willing and able to take it to a jury trial and the other side knows it because we actually have had a track record of successfully pursuing jury trials for decades and decades. That question will also involve a consideration of how risk-averse you want to be. It’s really your personal decision.
If you want to make that decision, then you need the best attorneys, trial attorneys, actual trial attorneys that you can find. Our firm has done this for many years successfully. If you have such a situation, please feel free to call us anytime at all or anybody else, any of the other lawyers in my law firm because we all have a similar level of experience all doing the same type of work, again, representing your best legal interests.
Personal Injury Settlement Timeline
It’s natural to wonder how long your case is going to take. Is it going to settle? What is going to resolve? When is the claim going to resolve?
I’m incurring these medical expenses. I need to get them paid. How long does it take? The answer is that terrible lawyer’s answer: it depends.
A personal injury claim in Idaho can resolve quickly or it can resolve after many years of litigation and fight. What are the things that impact that? Your personal injury case may be simple. Your injuries are small, the damages are limited, and a resolution can be worked out easily with an insurance company or a corporation that caused you damage.
Or it could be the fact they dispute the scope of your injuries. That makes it go a long time. More doctors are involved. They hire doctors. The litigation process is extended.
We also always want the injured person to have gotten as healthy as they can be. Maximum medical improvement is a term the doctors and the lawyers use in the process of injury claims.
The question you always have in an injury case centers on what the future holds for you. What’s going to happen with this injury later? I had a back injury. Is it going to bother me in 10 years, or 15 years, or 20 years? Sometimes it takes a while to evaluate that and get the medical professionals involved in evaluating that question for your personal injury case here in Idaho. That can make it take a long time.
The real answer for how long it takes for your case to settle is it depends. There are even those cases where you can’t get it resolved. You file a lawsuit. You can’t get it resolved during the 16, 18, 20 months prior to trial. You can’t get it resolved on the courthouse steps like they say.
The case goes to trial. The jury comes in and gives a verdict. What happens? The other side appeals. There are even times when it takes year after year after year. You go up on appeal. You have to try it again.
Those are the scary cases. They’re the outliers; they don’t happen often, but they can happen. Just like very few cases can settle very quickly, there’s very few cases that take a really long time and a whole realm of cases that cover in the middle. If you want to talk about your case, just call somebody at the firm. We’re happy to give you some advice, some direction, some guidance, and review your situation.
Were you injured due to someone else’s negligence in Boise and have questions about these 3 personal injury tips? Contact our experienced Boise Personal Injury Lawyers at Hepworth Holzer today for a free consultation and case evaluation.
We are committed to helping individuals and families throughout Idaho navigate the world of personal injury litigation as quickly and efficiently as possible. Let us get results for you and your family.
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