How Much Of Your Time Will Your Personal Injury Case Take?

When you’re injured, and you are out of work, and money, the time that it will take to start and complete a personal injury lawsuit, may not be foremost on your mind. But life doesn’t stop, and you will, in many cases, return to work, and you have family, and all the other things that take up time in your life.

And that begs the question: do you have time to file a personal injury case? How much of your time will your injury case actually take?

Medical Time is Different

To answer this question, we first need to clarify that the time it takes you to handle the matters related to your injury lawsuit, is different from the time it takes you to actually get medical treatment. So, excluding doctors appointments or therapies or whatever else is needed for you to get better, let’s look at the time it will take you to actually handle the legal part of your injury case.

Pre-Lawsuit Time

An injury claim, in many cases, won’t take you a whole lot of your own time. Many parts of a personal injury case are handled for you, in the background, and don’t need your direct interaction.

You may (and should) get calls from your injury attorney asking for information or documents or for background, as your attorney is preparing your case for you. That is a minimal amount of time.

Before your actual lawsuit is filed (if a lawsuit is actually ever needed, and in some cases, it’s not), you won’t have to do much at all. Most of the information your attorney needs can be handled by phone or email. Your attorney may call you now and again to give you the status of your lawsuit, and the negotiations between your attorney and the Defendant.

After a Lawsuit is Filed

If a lawsuit has to be filed, your time demands may go up a bit—but even then, not a whole lot.

Other than meeting with your attorney every now and then (which of course can be worked around your schedule, or sometimes, done remotely), you do not have to show up for each and every court hearing.

You may, if the case gets to a certain point, have to attend a deposition. This is perhaps the biggest imposition on your time. You may have to meet with your attorney to prepare for the deposition, and then attend the deposition itself. A deposition can vary in time, depending on the complexity of the issues and the case, but usually will take about half to one full day.

Your attorney will depose the Defendant as well, and while you are invited to come to those depositions, it is not a legal necessity that you do so.

Many cases are referred to medication, which is a settlement conference between you and the other side. This can be an all day event, but again, it can be coordinated with you, to work around your schedule.

Other than that, you may have to attend a trial, which can be a longer time undertaking. But trials are rare, and it is ultimately up to you as to whether to take your case to trial or not.

Let us do the work for you in your injury case. Contact our Rhode Island injury lawyers at Robert E. Craven & Associates at 401-453-2700.

Source:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3940566/