Apologies in advance - my Google Fu has failed me…
We are considering a personal injury claim / lawsuit. While there are apparently thousands of videos by lawyers about this topic, I want to find experiences, feedback, and opinions from plaintiffs - people who have actually been injured and gone through the legal process. How was the process from their perspective? How much time did it take up? What are the pitfalls to watch out for? What are you glad you did? What would you have done differently? Etc.
Whenever I try to search for this info, I’m deluged by lawyers’ videos and websites. Does anyone know how I can find plaintiffs talking about their experience?
Thanks,
J.
p.s., I’d also be interested in information about how to choose a personal injury attorney.
Someone specific or just general advice for working with any personal injury lawyer? If you’re just looking for general advice, I’m sure reddit has at least one, but probably a handful of subs dedicated to it.
I’m just looking for general advice and experiences right now.
J.
I would probably at least start with reddit. For example, if you go to r/insurance and search for ‘personal injury lawyer’ or ‘PI lawyer’ you’ll see threads with people asking similar questions a you did. Granted I have no idea how worthwhile the replies are, but it’s a start. Other legal or insurance type subs will probably yield similar results. And there may well be a dedicate sub just for it, but I didn’t see it in the 2 minutes I was looking.
As I can imagine this can be a long process for some people, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were message boards for it as well.
I was crossing the street one night, in the crosswalk and during the designated ped crossing time, and a guy turned right and smacked my elbow hard with his mirror. It spun me around and put on the ground. While no serious injuries, I was definitely bruised up and super sore for at least a week, making just walking around extremely taxing. I called an ambulance-chaser type lawyer just to see what the process entailed. He immediately set up all sorts of very expensive medical exams and physical therapy. While I was still curious as to what that all could do, it became very apparent that my well being wasn’t their main concern as much as the total cost of treatment. So I stopped going after just a few sessions since I wasn’t really injured at all (and the “treatment” wasn’t doing jack shit) Just bruised and sore, which I was used to from years of track and field and martial arts.
Anywho, the main thing I learned is that the usual settlement is 3 times the medical costs. 1/3 goes to those costs, 1/3 goes to the lawyer, and you get the last 1/3. So because I only did a few sessions of the “therapy” I only got like $1500, which at the time in my life was a huge windfall. But I’ve always felt gross about it. The more you know…
If it were me, I’d talk to a lawyer first, then look around for what people have to say. Your case is going to be different from other people’s experiences and your lawyer may be better than theirs (or not).