Act Fast To Get An Injury Attorney..But Why Is That So Important?

You may have seen ads for personal injury attorneys, telling you to “act fast” after your injury to contact an attorney. But why is it so important to hire an attorney as quickly as possible after your accident?

Yes, it’s important to you, as the victim; you may be out of work, your bills are mounting, you have medical expenses piling up, perhaps a car that needs to be repaired—after an accident, you need to get back on track as quickly as possible.

But why, legally, is it so important to quickly find a lawyer after an accident? It turns out that this advice isn’t just advertising or some attempt to rush you into something. There are real reasons why it’s important to see your attorney as quickly as you can.

The Statute of Limitations

You generally have only three years to sue for a personal injury case.

That seems like a long time. But in many cases, before suing, your attorney will have to gather your medical records, investigate the case, see how you recover, and get proof of your losses and damages, before even starting the back and forth negotiation with the insurance company.

That means that your attorney won’t file a lawsuit the day after you hire him or her. There is a waiting period to do all of these things before an actual lawsuit can be filed. That means that you should not wait until the deadline, to find and hire an injury attorney, or you could be too close to the statute of limitations.

Don’t Say the Wrong Thing

From immediately after your accident, you have people who represent the defendant (the party who negligently injured you), contacting you for information. They may want statements, documents, medical records or medical authorizations to get records. They may ask questions or even offer money to you.

How will you answer or respond to these things, and should you? If you do it on your own, you could make mistakes—insurance adjusters and liability attorneys are skilled at getting you to say and do things that they know will hurt your chance to recover compensation, later on.

But having your own injury attorney from the start, will avoid you having to deal with these things, or worse, making errors while doing these things. Your injury attorney will speak to these people, give them information the attorney thinks they are entitled to, and respond to their inquiries.

Preserving Evidence

Many third parties may have evidence, like documents, or surveillance videos, but they have no idea this information is vital evidence in your possible injury claim or case. So, they could end up throwing this information away or destroying it.

One of the first things an injury attorney will do is instruct all third parties not to throw away or destroy evidence that would be useful to you in your case.

Save Your Credit

Often, an injury attorney can work with your medical providers, to prevent them from reporting your medical debt to creditors while the case is pending. This can preserve your credit while you’re waiting for your case to resolve—and may also allow you to continue seeing your doctors, even though you may owe them money for treatment.

Come see us after your accident to explain what you can expect. Contact our Rhode Island injury lawyers at Robert E. Craven & Associates at 401-453-2700 for help.