The social media fundraising pages are heart wrenching. Posts and posts of different families who are struggling to recover from an accident, an illness, or a fall. Feeling as if they have no other options, these families ask for help from friends, from relatives, and from friends. Do these posts, however, ever make you wonder if these victims and their families have explored the legal possibilities of getting help. Have the parents of the girl who was injured by a drunk driver, for instance, talked to a car accident lawyer about the legal recourse that they might have? Has the husband of a wife who was the victim of a botched delivery checked into the responsibility that the doctor and the hospital might have? Or, has the daughter of the elderly woman who fell when she tripped over an uneven sidewalk at the outdoor mall done everything possible to make sure that her mother is compensated for her injuries?
Asking complete strangers and friends and relatives for help may be the latest trend on social media sites, but many families might find that their pleas for financial assistance might be best answered by going through the court system. Whether you or a loved on is struggling to recover from a motorcycle accident or a slip and fall accident, the best way to find the resources that you need for recovery might be by finding a motorcycle accident attorney or a personal injury lawyer. Equipped with information from previous cases and knowledge of how to anticipate the future needs and costs of an accident, personal injury lawyers can serve as valuable resources. Knowing when to call a law firm and ask for help or advice, in fact, can be the difference between surviving the financial stress of an accident and ending up with a lifetime of hospital and therapy bills that were caused by someone else’s mistake or carelessness.
Some personal injury lawyers focus on certain kinds of clients, and some personal injury lawyers represent clients in a variety of situations.
Make Sure That You Ask for the Help That You Need If You Have Been Injured in an Accident
One of the most important reasons for seeking legal advice in a personal injury accident is that you might find that you are able to get the help you need in a more timely manner. Without the help of your own legal representation you might find that you are waiting for a very long time to get the help that you need. With a lawyer who is working for you, however, the results may be more swift. Did you know, for instance, that 95% to 96% of personal injury cases are settled pretrial? If you do not get the help that you need you may one of the 4% to 5% of the personal injury cases in the U.S. that goes to trial and has to wait years for any kind of settlement. Or, without legal representation, you may be part of the 95% that gets a quick settlement, but finds out later that you settled for too little and spend the rest of your life trying to recuperate.
In almost all cases, there is absolutely no harm in seeking the advice of a personal injury attorney. In general, many of these legal advisers do not charge a fee for an initial consultation. Furthermore, if they do decide to accept your case it is likely that you will not pay for the legal fees until the case has settled.
Consider some of these facts and figures about the number of accidents that happen in America every year as a result of someone else’s carelessness:
- Every day, people drive drunk almost 300,000 times, but only 4,000 are ever arrested.
- Every two minutes, a drunk driving crash injures someone.
- 3,154 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers in the year 2013.
- 424,000 people were injured in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers in the year 2013.
- 660,000 drivers are using cell phones or manipulating electronic devices while driving at any given daylight moment across America. Statistics show these drivers are three times more likely to get in an accident.
