I receive many calls from individuals with various types of legal problems. There are almost countless types of minor civil disputes which occur every day. Although people do consult lawyers for relatively less significant disputes, many of these minor disputes can be resolved without legal counsel. Sometimes just good common sense is all that is needed.
Another factor to consider is the cost of hiring a lawyer. If the lawyer services will cost more than the disputed amount of damages, it makes a lot of sense for people to handle these small disputes themselves.
When it comes to serious personal injury claims, though, it is wise to seek experienced legal counsel. The amount of potential compensation can be in the millions of dollars, and that fact alone warrants professional legal care. Otherwise, you may end up with a very bad result.
Doctors see it all the time:
Lawyers are not the only professionals who see this type of misfortune occur. Medical doctors can tell of their experiences in trying to help patients who delayed treatment because they thought they could self-treat their own serious medical condition. Unfortunately for some, an otherwise treatable condition turns out to be even more serious, or fatal, when early treatment is not obtained.
In the same way, handling your own serious injury insurance claim has its risks: you may squander your only chance to obtain fair compensation for your serious injuries.
Insight from a Former Insurance Defense Lawyer
As a former defense lawyer, I have witnessed some people who have attempted to handle their own personal injury case. Without exception, their cases were either thrown out of court or ended with an unsatisfactory result.
Because insurance companies’ model of profitability is dependent upon obtaining low-ball settlements in injury claims, they must have a powerful weapon to threaten those injury victims who don’t want to accept a minimal settlement offer for their catastrophic injury claim.
The most effective way insurance companies achieve minimal settlements is through the threat of force: that is, threatening not to pay the claim and forcing injury victims to file a lawsuit and litigate their injury claim all the way to trial. Injury victims know that insurance companies have the money to pay their defense lawyers to contest their case in court. So, the real weapon insurance companies have at their command is their team of defense lawyers. They have strong advocates on their side fighting for them — shouldn’t you?
Jeffrey Robinette is a personal injury lawyer in Morgantown, West Virginia. For more information about Mr. Robinette, please visit his website – http://www.robinettelaw.com/.
