Sometimes accident victims decide to settle their own personal injury cases. If you had very minor injuries, no significant medical expenses, and are confident that your injuries have completely healed, you may not need a personal injury lawyer. If you have a serious injury caused by the negligence of another person, however, you are more likely to lose money than to save money by handling the claim yourself.
Personal injury lawyers are immune to those tactics. Personal injury lawyers understand the law. They are able to assess the true value of an injury victim’s claim. They cut through the nonsense that comes from the mouths of insurance adjusters and refuse to be intimidated. Personal injury lawyers get more money for their clients because they do not give up until the adjuster agrees to pay what the claim is worth.
Insurance adjusters know that if a victim is not represented by a lawyer, they need not fear a lawsuit. Few people who have not received a legal education have the ability to file a lawsuit, and even the few who understand the rules have little chance of winning a substantial verdict from a jury. Lawyers know how to use the legal system to a client’s advantage. When a lawyer represents an accident victim, insurance adjusters know that the threat of a lawsuit is real. They settle cases for their true value to eliminate that threat.
Since accident victims lack that experience, they have no basis for placing a value on the claim. Medical expenses and wage loss due to an injury may be easy for a victim to compute, but compensation for pain and suffering is often the largest component of a jury verdict. Since insurance adjusters know that accident victims cannot make a realistic estimate of the award a jury would make for pain and suffering, adjusters insist that pain and suffering isn’t worth much.
Accident victims pay a fee for the services of a personal injury lawyer, but only if the lawyer obtains compensation for them. In nearly every case, that fee is more than offset by the increased compensation that the lawyer negotiates for the victim’s pain and suffering. The difference between fair compensation and the inadequate compensation that victims are offered when they do not have a lawyer makes hiring a personal injury lawyer the financially sensible choice.