What Does A Personal Injury Lawyer Do? Pt. 4

In previous articles we’ve talked about what a personal injury attorney does with your North Carolina injury claim. In short, it’s a lot, but mostly it can be summarized as investigating coverage and making sure you’re doing what you’re supposed to do and not doing what you’re not supposed to be doing, as well as making sure we get all the documentation we need to negotiate a settlement of your claim.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I almost always try to get a case settled before I file suit. There are exceptions to every rule, but I generally think it’s in most parties’ interests to settle a case without litigation. I’ll do everything I can to get you treated fairly, but that can look different with different facts. It’s trite, but true: Every case is different.

The negotiations process with the insurance adjuster (that’s almost always with whom we’re dealing) can take anywhere from a day to forever. People always want to know how long it will take so they get frustrated when I tell them I can’t tell them, but I can’t. I recently had an adjuster who had a literal 24 hour turn-around on demands, which is unheard of. But I also deal with companies (AAAACH-statefarm-OOOOO!) that don’t respond for months. Of course, we can always file suit, but that doesn’t speed things up; it actually makes them go more slowly AND it costs money, to boot, so that doesn’t help. It normally pays to be patient, so bear with the process.

Most of the time cases do get settled this way. As I wrote above, that’s generally good for everyone, though not always. Assuming it works out, we get the settlement done in writing through a release document and we get your settlement funds. Those funds HAVE to go through my trust account, no ifs ands or buts. That normally takes about a week to clear. Then I have to meticulously document what comes out of those funds (generally my fee, some medical expenses, your take-home) but if you’re working with me, you’ll know what those numbers are before it all goes down.

Here’s what’s crazy: I’ve written 4 articles on what personal injury attorneys do and we haven’t even TOUCHED on litigation yet. That’s explained by two facts: First, we do A LOT for our clients, and Second, most cases get settled without litigation.

Stay tuned for more lawyer stuff.