In the vast majority of personal injury cases, injury victims will be better off hiring a personal injury lawyer to handle their claim, particularly in serious injury cases. But many people for a variety of reasons – most of them foolish – will choose to handle their own claims. Accordingly, I have drafted a list of things that are a good idea to do or not do if you are trying to handle your own personal injury case. You can find these tips on handling your own personal injury case on our Miller & Zois website.
Why do this? Because people will handle their own claims so I think personal injury lawyers should try to arm these people with a few weapons to get the best outcome. Not only will it help them, but it will help our clients as well because awful settlements are thrown into the pool of data to determine fair value in personal injury cases.
The problem with these tips is that they are not legal advice because legal advice is narrowly tailored to the specific facts of a particular case. So in a small minority of personal injury cases, following these tips will hurt, not help your case, because of specific facts that fall outside the general rule.
These tips apply only to personal injury car accident cases. They do not apply to serious injury medical malpractice or product defect cases. These cases, particularly medical malpractice cases, are very difficult to resolve without suing. Offers that injury victims may receive in these kinds of cases are rarely meaningful and this is usually very apparent by the offer.