Why You Should Hire an Attorney for Your Personal Injury Claim in Georgia

Injured? Lost a Loved One? Our Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyer Explains Why You Should Hire an Attorney for Your Personal Injury Claim in Georgia

Accidents and unintentional injuries are one of the leading causes of personal injury or wrongful death in the United States. According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), accidents result in roughly 25 million physician office visits and 25.5 million hospital visits each year in the United States. The same statistics from the CDC and other figures from Johns Hopkins Medicine indicate that accidents and unintentional deaths are the fifth leading cause of death in the United States, with motor vehicle accidents and falls being two of the top three most common causes of accident deaths. However, other studies suggest that medical negligence due to physician errors, hospital mistakes, nursing home negligence, and other reckless healthcare services may actually result in over 250,000 deaths a year. Although some defendants or insurance adjusters may fairly pay victims, many will not. As a result, this is why you should hire an attorney for your personal injury claim in Georgia. 

Here at Prieto & Spoo Law, our compassionate and experienced Atlanta personal injury lawyer knows how to fight back to protect the rights of victims of nearly any type of accident. Our legal team understands how damaging that these types of cases can be for victims and their families, including the significant pain and suffering, lost wages, medical bills, and other damages due to an accident. That’s why our bodily injury law firm offers victims and their families: 

• Free consultations and case evaluations 
• No obligation to sign up after a consultation or case evaluation 
• No upfront costs – we pay the costs, disbursements, expenses, and other bills related to your case which are only reimbursed after we recover compensation for you 
• Legal fees on a contingency, meaning our legal bills are only paid from a percentage of the total amount that we recover for you and only after we make that recovery for you, and 
• There is a no-win, no-fee guarantee with our services. 

To learn more about how our personal injury law firm can help you, contact us today to get started. 

After an Accident in Georgia, Do I Need to Have a Lawyer? 

Generally, no – there is no requirement under Georgia law to obtain a lawyer to represent you in an accident. Victims are free to represent themselves against an insurance company or even in litigation against a defense lawyer. This is called presenting yourself pro se, or being a self-represented litigant. 

Why Representing Yourself is a Bad Idea 

Although you can represent yourself, you shouldn’t. Even if you have had success in the past representing yourself against an insurance adjuster for a medical bill claim, dental bill, fender bender, or property claim, a personal injury case is simply nothing like those types of insurance disputes. Thus, accident victims often end up recovering significantly less money when they try to represent themselves than if they hire an Atlanta personal injury lawyer. 

This is because: 

Insurance Adjusters are Well-trained 

Despite the fact that an insurance adjuster is not a lawyer, unfortunately, they are often trained by lawyers. Indeed, many adjusters travel to national or regional conferences which are taught by defense lawyers – sometimes even the top defense lawyers in the country or region. Adjusters often sit side-by-side with other adjusters and defense lawyers, learning together and sometimes doing exercises together to sharpen or test skills. As a result, even though adjusters are not lawyers, they are being well-trained by lawyers to fight back against you. 

Insurance Adjusters Have a Lot of Experience  

In addition to being well-trained, insurance adjusters just have a lot of experience handling claims. Many will hold caseloads well over 50 cases, some with upwards of 200 or 300 cases at a time – sometimes even more. As a result, adjusters simply become more comfortable and skilled at reading victims and handling claims in an efficient manner. They know the “going rate” of compensation, and they simply have more practice handling cases. As a result, even if a victim has handled several insurance claims before, it is highly unlikely that they will come anywhere close to the same number of claims that an adjuster has handled. 

Most Adjusters Have a Silent Lawyer Helping Them 

If all of that was not bad enough, most insurance adjusters have a defense lawyer that they can ask questions to. This lawyer is often floating in the department and, depending on the insurance carrier, may have a varying level of responsibility. Some may even review entire claims and do research to help the adjuster undermine, mitigate, or deny your claim. Other lawyers may listen in or review your claims to feed the adjuster what to say. Therefore, it is essentially not a level playing field. 

Fight Back: Why You Should Hire an Attorney for Your Personal Injury Claim in Georgia 

Now understanding why insurance claims are not fair, hiring an Atlanta personal injury lawyer to handle your personal injury claim in Georgia is the best way to level that playing field and even get the upper hand. Indeed, a lawyer such as one of those at Prieto & Spoo Law has a legal education, passed the bar examination, is licensed, continues with legal education requirements (CLEs), is experienced, and has developed a network of experts to help support a case in a way that an adjuster simply does not have. 

In addition to these advantages, other reasons why to hire an attorney for your personal injury claim in Georgia include the following: 

• Give notice to the insurance carriers and not fall for tricks they use 
• Gather medical records 
• Obtain police reports and investigations 
• Identify witnesses and collect information or statements 
• Recover evidence such as video recordings or pictures from businesses or witnesses 
• Seek expert opinions from physicians or liability experts 
• Serve strong settlement demands, including pre-lawsuit in a manner to help get a fair and just settlement right away 
• Commence a legal action if an adjuster or defense lawyer won’t fairly compensate you 
• Conduct discovery, hold depositions, and engage in motion practice 
• Handle a mediation or arbitration for you 
• Represent you and your family at a trial 
• Handle appeals, where appropriate, to protect favorable orders or judgments, or to reverse an error of law or fact by a lower court 
• In wrongful death cases, handle an estate by obtaining limited letters 
• In child injury cases, handling an infant settlement, and 

• Otherwise representing you and your family from the point of first contact to the time when you have a check in your hand and there is no way for the defendant to challenge it. 

Were You Hurt in Atlanta? Still Have Questions Why You Should Hire an Attorney for Your Personal Injury Claim in Georgia? Call Prieto & Spoo Law 

Whether you were injured in a car accident, truck wreck, slip and fall, dog bite, medical error, motorcycle crash, or lost a loved one, contact our Atlanta personal injury lawyer at Prieto & Spoo Law for help with your case. There are many reasons why you should hire an attorney for your personal injury claim in Georgia, and your inquiry should start and end with our bodily injury law firm. We offer personalized and dedicated service, fighting back to ensure that victims and their families recover the fair and just compensation that they deserve under Georgia law. 

To learn more about our Atlanta personal injury lawyer and our bodily injury law firm, contact us today by dialing 678-961-0253 or by sending us a message through our website available here. Together we will get through this, and it starts today with a FREE consultation.