I recently had a wreck caused by another driver, their insurance co so far has taken care of repair of my bike so now on to the medical portion. I plan to wait 6 mos to a year before I consider settling on this case. I was just advised by my doctor that I have torn ligaments in my knee as well as a micro fracture to my femur. I am now considering getting an attorney and wondered if I will come out ahead if I go this route. it is my understanding that most attorneys take a third of anything collected. Any thoughts?

 

You can negotiate how much the attorney will get when you hire him. I think it would be best to have a good attorney handle this for you if you had serious injuries.

 

He gets a third , a third goes to medical payments, and a third for you, if you do the math yes you will come out ahead, because without the attorney you will most likely get med pay only.

 

Now I just called my insurance company for advice on this and they said as long as the at faults insurance co. is handling the claim and meds to my satisfaction there is no need for an attorney, but at any point I feel they are not being fair with me is the time to get with an attorney. I was told I have 2 years from date I filed the medical claim to file a suit if this is the case.

 

and figure 2 years before you settle

 

With one possible exception. Let's say the at-fault's insurance max is $25k. Let's also say that their insurance co thinks you'll easily get that in court. Let's say that that ins co knows they may just as well settle the whole thing for the max they could owe of $25k without paying any additional fees or costs. They pay to get rid of it. It costs them a lot to delay or to go to court, too and they have to pay that in addition to the $25k if they decide to fight.

 

They gots an att WHY DON'T U????

 

Many years ago a friend of mine was in an accident, car turned in front of him, he drove into the side of the car and flew into the back seat--thru the window, suffered a lot of surface damage and a broken sturnum?, he got a lawyer, and obtained a settlement --not only for the current injuries, but for "future" pain and suffering something most people do not think of, what are the implications of serious knee damage when you are 60+

I fell off of a dirt bike at high speed and drove my right hand,fingers first, into the dirt, it hurt for a long time, now 30 years later I have serious nerve problems with two fingers-----so it's your call---but if in an accident I would talk to a lawyer "first" even before any insurance company.

 

bingo

and for that matter, YOUR insurance company should be handling this. If not, they suck and it's time to change. My father was nearly killed in an accident - we took it to our insurance company, and they took care of everything, including getting the money back from the other guy. Come to the end, and they were ready to help with a lawsuit, and the other place just coughed up his liability max.

 

I had a major accident in England in 1998 and the other party would not admit liabilty at first. I had to wait nearly 3 years for a settlement and that only happened because I had an attorney. They don't do the no win no pay over there as a rule. The negotiations for the settlement included paying my attorney, actual losses, future earnings losses, loss of pension (I was off work 2 and 1/2 years and lost my job!). In general Brits are not into litigation as we are and settlements are much smaller, so it was important to get the attorney to fight for every penny. As usual the insurance company tried every trick in the book to delay proceedings and lower their payout. At the preliminary hearing the judge was most unimpressed as I had not a penny as an interim payment and let the insurance company know that they were in deep s**t as far as he was concerned. They waited until hours before the court date and did some frantic negotiating through my attorney. Final result was over 200K, which I doubt would have happened on my own. My .02