In accident and injury cases, the initial consultation is free. These meetings tend to be on the short side. They are often no more than 30 minutes.
It might help to think of this first meeting as a mutual interview. This is so because it is a meeting in which you are trying to decide if we can help you, but we are also trying to decide if this case makes any sense for us to take on.
So, it will not cost you any money to come speak with us about your situation. In part because the initial consultation is free, if you have been injured, it is best to err on the side of going ahead and scheduling a consult with an attorney.
There are many reasons to do so. They include, but are not limited to, the following reasons:
- Soft tissue injuries may not seem serious, but they can be devastating. This may not be immediately obvious.
- Your memory of the events will be freshest shortly after the event. Waiting until later can cause you to simply forget pertinent details.
- Delays in starting a paper trail can cause vital information and evidence to evaporate into thin air, weakening your case when you finally do decide to pursue a legal remedy.
- The odds are good that an experienced lawyer will see important details that you won’t realize are important.
Soft tissue injuries can include brain injuries. These can be incredibly debilitating and have a life-long negative impact on your physical welfare and earning capacity.
If your brain has been jostled by an accident, it may not be apparent in the first few days that something life altering has happened. In such a situation, if you do not start a paper trail immediately, it may be extremely difficult to prove in a court of law that your problems are, in fact, due to the incident in question when it does become apparent to you.
Brain injuries are not only one of the most devastating kinds of injuries to have, they also inherently introduce challenges to making the case. This is so because the person who has been injured may be impaired in ways that impact their memory of events, they ability to be organized and keep track of things and so forth. The very problems they desire to sue over may impair their ability to sue competently.
For this reason, you should always try to start a paper trail immediately following any serious accident. It may be the only means to capture vital information necessary to getting the compensation you both deserve and need in order to take care of yourself in the aftermath.
Accident and injury cases are almost always taken on contingency. This means the attorney does not get paid on an hourly basis. Instead, they take a cut of the settlement when the case is won, and they get nothing if the case is lost.
This has two important effects for you, the client:
- If you lose, you are not saddled with attorney’s fees on top of your medical bills and other problems.
- The attorney will not take a case they know they have no hope of winning. Thus, if they take your case, it means a professional is confident the claim is legitimate.
It is standard practice in injury cases for the attorney to 1) give a free initial consultation and then 2) take the case on contingency if they do decide to take it at all. So, it is a good idea to go ahead and schedule a free consult with one or two attorneys after any serious injury and get their professional opinion on the incident.
Even if it does not turn into a lawsuit, this can help give you peace of mind in the aftermath of an unfortunate event. If a couple of different attorneys listen to your story and they both tell you “No, this is not a big deal and, no, this is no case here that is worth pursuing” it can be tremendously reassuring. This can help you move on emotionally and psychologically during a difficult time in your life.
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