How Can a Personal Injury Attorney Protect My Rights After an Accident?

If you’ve been in an accident in Salt Lake City, UT, you do have rights: but if you’re not aware of them and don’t know how to protect them, you could find yourself losing out on a lot. A personal injury attorney is the right person to contact to make sure that all your rights are protected after an accident.

10 Ways an Attorney in Salt Lake City, UT Can Protect Your Rights

By Communicating With the Insurance Companies

The insurance companies in an accident are not on your side. It’s not in the best interest of the company to have to pay out on any claim, and when they do pay out, they want to pay as little as they have to. It’s common for victims to get calls from the insurance adjusters immediately after an accident, and while they might sound very friendly, you need to always remember that their best interests and yours are not aligned. A lot of the time, these well-trained insurance adjusters are asking questions in a way designed to get the answers they want: answers that they can construe to say that you hold more blame for the accident than you do or that your injuries are not as bad as you claim.

Once you have a trusted attorney on your side, you don’t have to worry about this. Whenever the insurance company contacts you, you simply refer them to your lawyer with all questions. Your lawyer will talk to them, help you prepare (and be with you if you do need to give a sworn statement to the insurance company), negotiate for you in settlements, and protect you from signing any settlement that doesn’t cover all of your losses and damages. An experienced attorney knows about the most common tactics an insurance company uses to protect themselves and will protect you from them.

Getting and Protecting Your Medical Records

It’s not always the most straightforward thing in the world to get all your medical records. On top of that, the insurance company may be demanding certain details in those records which your healthcare provider doesn’t normally put in. Your attorney serves as a go between here and can make sure that everything that’s actually needed is obtained from the hospital or other medical provider, while you concentrate on recovery rather than on the stress of making phone calls and trying to coordinate all of this.

In addition, your lawyer will protect your medical records if the insurance company is trying to access things they don’t have any right to see. Insurance companies often want to request extensive medical records because they’re hunting for something else that they can blame your injury on rather than the accident itself. And while the insurance company does have a right to see the medical records that pertain to the accident they are being asked to pay for, they do not have unlimited rights to all information about your health. Your lawyer will take care of all of this and protect your right to privacy along the way.

Making Sure You Don’t Miss Deadlines

Your rights to bring a personal injury claim, and even a lawsuit if the insurance company won’t play ball, could be compromised if you miss out on important deadlines. In fact, you could lose your rights to any compensation whatsoever if you don’t file the right documents in the right place within the right deadline. Your attorney will know how to file everything related to your case and will make sure it gets done in a timely way so you don’t run a foul of the statute of limitations and your claim keeps moving.

By Doing an Independent Investigation

Utah has what’s known as “modified comparative negligence” laws related to personal injury. These laws allow you to bring a claim for personal injury, but only so long as you are not more responsible for the accident than the other party involved. In addition, your total compensation will be lowered by the same percentage as your fault. For example, if you are found to be 40% at fault for the accident and have damages that amount to $80,000, you would only come away with $32,000 and would have to find another way to cover everything else. As you can see, assigning fault is very important in these cases, and the insurance company and the other party are incentivized to put every bit of blame on you that they possibly can.

Your lawyer can conduct an independent investigation if necessary to reconstruct the accident and determine exactly what happened and who was it fault, and to what degree. You likely don’t have the tools necessary to conduct this investigation on your own, but your attorney knows how to do it and has all the resources necessary. Your attorney will make sure that you are not unfairly blamed for any part of the accident and don’t lose out on compensation because of a biased investigation by the insurance company or lies that the other party might be telling.

By Giving You Good Advice

Your attorney does more than just take care of the legalities here. Your lawyer is also there to give you good advice and help you understand the legal process and what’s going on at every step. The decisions you make at each point along the way will make a big difference to your future, and your attorney will help you to make the right decisions that get you the greatest amount of compensation. Your attorney will tell you when you should accept a settlement, when you should push for more, where you need to compromise, and help you keep focused on your long-term future.

This is particularly important because of what you’re going through. When you’re trying to recover from injuries and dealing with the emotional stress of the accident itself, it’s easy for emotions to cloud your decisions. Your accident lawyer is on your side but not experiencing all these emotions, and that makes them the perfect person not only to represent your interests but also to help you to make the right choices throughout your case.

Representing You At Trial

Most of these cases are settled outside the courtroom, but sometimes they aren’t. You can expect your attorney to do everything possible to avoid a trial, since the outcome is not guaranteed and this can often be a more expensive route. But if the insurance company simply refuses to offer a reasonable settlement, you may have no choice. And once a case gets to trial, you’ll definitely want an attorney there to protect you.

Your attorney knows all the courtroom procedures and how they are done properly, and that means you’ll be putting your best foot forward in front of the judge. Your attorney will also advocate for your position and needs, counter the arguments of the other side, and fight for you all along the way. Trying to go to court without an attorney is one of the biggest risks anyone can ever take.