How to Decrease the Time to Resolve a Personal Injury Case

Last updated on: March 24, 2023

Summary:
In this episode, Zinda Law Group CEO and founder, Jack Zinda, gives you steps for decreasing the resolve time for a personal injury lawsuit.

Discussed in this episode:
•    Maximize your value in the least amount of time possible
•    Create a timeline
•    Pre-planning
•    How to get around insurance company tactics

Maximize your value in the least amount of time possible
In solving a personal injury case, your objective should be to maximize the case value in the least amount of time possible. This doesn’t mean that the case should get tried sooner than it should be or that you should settle for the sake of time and walk away with less money. Rather, this means that you should look for opportunities to decrease the amount of time each aspect of the case takes.

Create a Timeline
In order to accomplish this, you should create a case timeline. Within two weeks, you should establish what happened, liability, and the source of recovery in addition to discerning how catastrophic a client’s injuries are. After you file the lawsuit, make sure you have a deadline to get the defendant served and measure how long each inflection point of the case should take.

Pre-Planning
Before voicing your client’s demands, you need to know 1) what the case is worth, 2) what monetary number an insurance company or entity can initially offer that will indicate they are not serious about compensation, and 3) what monetary number an insurance company or entity can initially offer that will be acceptable.

How to get around insurance company tactics
Insurance companies use tactics to slow down personal injury cases such as hiring overworked law firms and utilizing their own company lawyers. To get around these tactics, you should point out to the judge the logic behind them. Insurance companies also tend to ask judges for extended expert designation deadlines in addition to intentionally not scheduling depositions ahead of time. The way around these tactics is to send letters reminding the defendant of upcoming deadlines. With these reminders in place, judges are less likely to grant extensions.

Transcript

Jack Zinda (00:10):
Welcome to The Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda and I’ll be your host.

Kevin Tully (00:22):
Welcome to the Effective Lawyer Podcast. My name is Kevin Tully. I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at Zinda Law Group, and with me as always is Jack Zinda. Today we’re going to be talking about how to decrease the time to resolve a personal injury case. Jack, where do you want to kick it off with this topic?

Jack Zinda (00:38):
Hey, Kevin. Good to see you, man. This topic I’m very passionate about because I think there’s so many lawyers in law firms that sit on cases too long and it doesn’t, it hurts their clients, but it also hurts their bottom line because they’re missing opportunities to generate revenue for themselves and also cases get worse with time. So the first thing I want to say is you need to look at your objective is to maximize your value in the least amount of time possible. Now, that doesn’t mean you settle a case sooner than it should be settled, or try a case sooner than it should be tried. And it also doesn’t mean you take less money if a case could resolve sooner rather than later. But what you’re looking for is those opportunities to squeeze the timeline down. And the first thing that I like to do, or that I did when I started my firm is I made an a template for what is the typical timeline that a case should take.
(01:45):
And so for example, we have a policy, we sign up the case, we want to establish what happened, liability without the client’s testimony within two weeks. That means gathering enough evidence that we can prove what we think happened, happened. Now, you can’t do that in every case. And again, this is why it’s a template. So that gives us that small window of two weeks. We also want to establish what is the source of recovery and then how roughly hurt do we think the client is? Is it a catastrophic injury? Is it just a serious injury? And so that’s our first timeline. The next is we look at, okay, in general, a client’s gonna treat for three to six months if it’s a moderate injury case. And so we’ll look at that initial treating period as a three to six month timeline. And I’m using a hypothetical in a smaller case here, if it was a more catastrophic case, we’ll talk about those in a second.
(02:44):
And so again, we already have two milestones. We have two weeks and we have three to six months in our firm. We have a rule. We either want a case in litigation, or a demand out, or we have a reason we’re intentionally not doing it. But you notice that word intentional. A lot of law firms just like cases sit and there’s no intentionality behind it. So now let’s say instead of two weeks, it took 12 weeks. Why just added 10 weeks to the timeframe that it’s gonna take me to resolve the case on the back end. So we just added time to that gap. Another trick that you want to, or tactic, is as you’re establishing that template and that timeline you want to make sure that when you file the lawsuit, you have a deadline to get the person served.
(03:37):
I’ve gotten cases referred to me where our suit was filed and it’s been 3, 4, 5, 6 months till the defendant got served, which again, you just added time to yourself. Another theme is you want to make sure that you’re pre-planning what your strategy is going to be when you send a demand, and then pre-planning your strategy when you file the lawsuit. So what do I mean by pre-planning? So when I send a demand, I’m going to evaluate the case fully, what do I think it’s worth? And then what are my first three moves of negotiation of the negotiation tactic? What is the number where if they offer this, I’m gonna know they’re not serious about settling it? And what is the number where I’m going to accept the offer? And by pre-planning that what I’ve done is I’ve ensured I’m going to be decisive When the offer comes in, a lot of times an attorney will get an offer.
(04:32):
They haven’t decide what the cases were, so they have to then decide that, but they’re at the same time, they’re really busy that week. They have 3, 4, 5 depos, then they have mediation next week, then they trial the week after that. And before you note it, it’s been a month and a half and you haven’t even addressed an offer, which is money that could be potentially sitting there. When I file the lawsuit, I’m going to map out every step that I need to take from trial back to the suit being filed in detail. Now that takes time, right? That’s not going to happen in five minutes. It may take you an hour, two hours to put that together, but I just have my roadmap now. So now I can delegate work to my team that they know when we get an answer. We’re going to set this deposition, we’re going to send this round of discovery, we’re going to get this hearing set If I’m in federal court. If I’m in Colorado, a case management conference and I’m not trying to decide on the fly what to do, which again creates delay because you have this, this information gap, you’re like, oh, what should I do here? Should I do this? Should I not do that? And you’ll miss your artificial timelines cuz you’re in the hurricane of your day-to-day practice.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
This podcast is presented by Zinda Law Group, a nationwide personal injury firm. For over 10 years, the experienced lawyers at ZLG have been partnering with outside counsel across the United States on all types of personal injury and wrongful death cases with over 30 attorneys. Zinda Law Group has paid out millions in referral and joint venture fees since 2015. To learn more about partnering with Zinda Law Group, please email us at referrals@zindalaw.com. We’ll schedule a time for you to meet with Jack Zinda or one of our trial lawyers to discuss your case.

Jack Zinda (06:23):
The other piece is you have to look at every file once a month and not just glance at it, you need to review the case. What are the next steps? Do I need to adjust my strategy? And then what are the things that are going to need to happen to, to get the case to trial or to make sure that the case gets resolved. We also like to, if it’s a medical record case, not a wrongful death case, we’d like to get the medical records as soon as possible. For example, hospitals take the longest over request those right away. If it’s an ambulance, kind of the same thing there. And we have a dedicated team that focuses just on getting records because that can be a repetitive task that people can get really good at if that’s all they do.
(07:10):
So that efficiency there makes a lot of sense cuz you don’t need a lot of strategy. That changes case to case on that front. And then we measure each of the different milestones to see how are we doing, how’s the team doing, and how am I doing individually? And then we compare those data points. Let’s say one attorney, it takes nine months to get a case resolved in litigation and another attorney takes 19 months. Now there might be a good reason for that. Maybe you’re in federal court on really complicated cases, or maybe you just aren’t doing a good job in strategizing the file. But that data point gives us something to work off of. And there’s a term that people use this as if you measure it, you can manage it. And so we measure not only the time to resolve ourselves, but we measure the individual inflection points to see how those are going. So to recap, the big things that you want to focus on are, number one, pre-planning each inflection point. You know, the demand stage when you first get the case file on the lawsuit, review the file every single month, measure how long the different inflection points should take, and then constantly tweak your approach to see if you can improve that over time.

Kevin Tully (08:27):
So you mentioned at the top that cases get worth worse with time and I’m sure the defense is aware of that. So what are the ways that they typically try to slow you down and how do you overcome those?

Jack Zinda (08:39):
First there’s one tactic that I see a lot of insurance companies use is they will hire law firms that are overworked and give them three, 400 cases and pay them a low flat rate to work on those cases. And then it gives the attorney an excuse say, well, I can’t possibly have that deposition because I have eight that day. So that’s one tactic that I see. They intentionally overload a firm. So the firm can say, I can’t appear at this deposition. The way you overcome that is if it’s what’s called a captive law firm, they’re owned by the insurance company or if it’s a high volume firm, you point that out to the judge when you file a motion to compel and say, listen, your Honor, you know, we think Ms. Defense attorney is a great person, but by her own admission she has 400 files.
(09:27):
And if State Farm wants, you know, to have a lawyer, they need to make sure they have an attorney that has the time to work on this case. It’s not fair to penalize our client because they’re intentionally doing this. And you point out to the judge the logic behind it, they get to hang onto their money longer. And that’s why they gave this attorney 400 cases that a lot of times will get the job done. But you’ve got to make sure that you’re paying attention to that and you don’t let the defense move those goalposts down the road. So that’s one tactic. Another one that I see is the expert designation deadlines and the discovery deadlines. So what they’ll do with the expert designation deadlines is they’ll wait till the last minute and say, Hey, I can’t get my expert lined up. Can you give me a 60 day, 90 day extension?
(10:18):
One way to avoid that is make sure you get your experts designated way in advance of the deadline and then send letters asking them for their experts saying, Hey, hey, we’ve done discovery. I need your experts. I need your experts. I want to make sure we’re not going to need to grant an extension. I need your experts. And that makes it less likely the judge is going to grant it. And if they do, make sure that you either get them to agree that they won’t ask for another one or go to court and get the judge to understand that another one shouldn’t be granted for certain reasons. On the discovery deadline front, one thing that they’ll do a lot of times is intentionally not set depositions that are critical to the case like your client, and then try to set it a week before the deadline and then try to make you look like you’re not agreeing to a date.
(11:08):
So try to preplan that and think ahead of time. Okay. They need my client’s deposition, so I’m going to start sending letters to them. Hey, let me know when you take their deposition. You know, discovery deadline’s coming up in 120 days, in 90 days in 60 days, in 30 days. And so then when they go before the court and say, your Honor, I sent them nine letters telling them that it was upcoming. They didn’t set it and they asked for the date a week before the deadline that that’s not fair to then delay the case because of this. Now, most of the time a judge is probably still going to grant their extension, but you’ve really set ’em up to not get that second extension that they’re gonna want.

Kevin Tully (11:51):
Wow. There’s tons of great information in there. Thanks so much for, for answering all the questions, Jack. Where can folks reach you if they have any questions on this topic?

Jack Zinda (12:01):
Yeah, if you want to know about this or anything else we’d love to share. I’m a big believer in rising tide raises all ships. You can reach me at zindalaw.com or email me at jack@zindalaw.com. Really complicated email address. If you are a marketing vendor, please do not spam me with your emails . Thanks all.

Kevin Tully (12:21):
Thanks Jack.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of The Effective Lawyer. You can learn more about our team and find other episodes of our podcast at zindalaw.com. As always, we’d appreciate that you subscribe, rate and review the pod. Thanks.

How To Increase The Average Case Value Of A Personal Injury Case

Last updated on: March 15, 2023

Summary

In this episode, Jack discusses how to increase the average value of a case. He shares tips and tactics such as valuing the quality of a case over quantity of cases, having a strong knowledge of your case, knowing your client’s personal story, understanding the elements of liability and damages within your case, and running up the score on loss of earning capacity.

 

Transcript

Jack Zinda (00:10):

Welcome to The Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda and I’ll be your host.

Kevin Tully (00:22):

Welcome to the Effective Lawyer Podcast. My name is Kevin Tully. I’m the Chief Marketing Officer at Zinda Law Group, and with me as always is Jack Zinda. Today we’re going to be talking about how to increase the average value in a case. Jack, how you doing today?

Jack Zinda (00:35):

I’m doing great, Kevin. Great to see you my friend. We’re getting ready for March Madness and spring break. So a lot of fun stuff is happening right now in my world. On top of trying to keep this place running.

Kevin Tully (00:47):

Do you any Final Four picks you want to share with the audience?

Jack Zinda (00:50):

Definitely Baylor and UT, and then I think Baylor and UT again. I think they’re going to somehow both being the final four, twice.

Kevin Tully (00:57):

I’m going to put all my money on it.

Jack Zinda (00:59):

There you go.

Kevin Tully (01:00):

So take us through it. How do we increase the average value in a case?

Jack Zinda (01:04):

Well, the first thing that I want to talk about is I think a lot of firms pay too much attention to the number of cases they have opposed to getting maximum value for every file. Our law firm takes a slightly different approach than other personal injury firms, or at least some where we have a relatively small docket per lawyer. Our attorneys will have on average between 30 to 50 cases per what we call lead trial lawyer. Some will have a little bit more, but our idea behind it is we think we can increase the value of a case by putting more time and energy into it. Whereas a lot of law firms, I think they make the mistake of focusing on volume of quantity over quality. And the mistake that can happen when you do that is sometimes you may have upset clients because they don’t get a lot of money out of the process.

(01:59):

A lot of times a small case will take as much work as a medium size case, and you end up needing a lot more staff and overhead to manage that caseload. So that’s kind of the first big picture. Now that does work for some firms and there’s some practice areas where volume only makes sense. And so I’m not saying anything wrong with the other approaches, it’s just what we found has worked for us. So let’s talk about the things you have to do to maximize the value in your file. The first is you need to have a strong knowledge of the case and you need to know the client’s story as well as what are the elements of liability and damages that you need to focus on. In my opinion, and this is just my opinion, the results you get is driven by a few things.

(02:50):

One, the defense conduct the bad guy, what did they do and how bad was that harm? If I have a drunk truck driver who’d taken methamphetamines, that’s one set of bad facts versus someone who doesn’t hit their brakes in time and rear end someone on their way to church. Those are two different sets of facts. So one, knowing what the defendant did in getting into their conduct, you also want to try to go deeper and look at if it’s a case involving a commercial defendant, what was the conduct of the employer in that process? You’re trying to make the case bigger than just this one incident, and you want to make clear that this wasn’t just a mistake where things happen, you want to try to show a pattern of behavior. And if you want to think about like a 60 minutes episode or a 20/20 to where they set up the defendant showing this bad thing happened, this bad thing happened, this bad thing happened, then boom, this really terrible thing happened.

(03:55):

There was warning after warning after warning. If you notice in the railroad case recently in Ohio where the train went off the tracks, they’re bringing up all of these other terrible things that has happened with Norfolk Southern, which is going to have a big effect on what the outcome is. If there is, and I’m sure there will be litigation on those cases. The next thing you need to know is what is my client’s story? So we’ve talked about one driver of value is defense conduct. The other driver of value is the client. And what is their story prior to what happened? I’m sure a lot of you’ve heard of the hero’s journey. That’s a nomenclature that people use to describe the different types of stories that we tell as humans. But you want your client to be the hero of the story, and they need to have been on their way to do something that’s important when the injury happened.

(04:52):

Now, it doesn’t mean literally they were on their way to do something important. If it’s a car wreck, it means they were a student going to go to college to do something great. They’re a mom who wanted to help raise their kids to get them to college. They’re a grandmother that wanted to make sure that her grandkids were taken care of. But you want to look for that story. And the only way you can do that is by spending time with the person. Go to their house, look at their photos, talk to their friends, talk to their family, talk to their neighbors and find out who they were before the incident happened. On a side note, if you have a hard time showing there was any change before and after, you may not have a good case. The next thing you want to look at is what happened to the client and what was the mechanism of harm?

(05:43):

So you can really build up your damages by walking through how did the injury happen and how bad is it, what the person went through. And that’s really helpful by using visuals such as x-rays, MRIs, pictures from the scene, and you’re looking for those things that really describe, oh, that was a really terrible injury that occurred. I heard a great description. I believe this is one of David Ball’s, damages books and one of his seminars where he talks about going through my new detail if someone is shot by a gun. Because in the movies, they make it seem like, you know, you just get hit by a bullet and you fall down and you die. But in reality, the bullet’s going to pierce the skin, then it’s going to pierce the bone, then it’s going to pierce the muscle than if it goes into your lung. Blood’s going to go into the lung and you’re going to start choking to death on your own blood. That’s a lot more graphic about what it’s like to get shot or if you break your leg, okay, the, you know, femur snapped into at the same time the nerves tore and then the muscle ripped apart. And you take that snapshot in time and you take it from a small piece to a really large extended story that’s a part of the story, that’s an inflection point.

(07:02):

This podcast is presented by Zinda Law Group, a nationwide personal injury firm. For over 10 years, the experienced lawyers at ZLG have been partnering with outside counsel across the United States on all types of personal injury and wrongful death cases with over 30 attorneys, Zinda Law Group has paid out millions in referral and joint venture fees since 2015. To learn more about partnering with Zinda Law Group, please email us at referrals@zindalaw.com. We’ll schedule a time for you to meet with Jack Zinda or one of our trial lawyers to discuss your case.

 

Jack Zinda (07:40):

And then you want to tell the story for what happened after the incident. How did they change? I used to watch this show Quantum Leap, which, I don’t know if our listeners have listened to that, I think, I think they’re doing a remake of it, but it was this great show where this guy would travel back in time and you’d have to fix something that was wrong on the history timeline, so you’d like leap into their body and something would change. So I think of our stories as like the quantum leap moment, but in a bad way. You know, they were going along a path somewhere and then this terrible thing happened and they changed directions. And you want to be able to explain like how much worse that direction was changed. And that applies to small cases, medium size cases and big cases.

(08:25):

You know, if someone missed their child’s third birthday party, that’s a big deal. If they missed, you know, their family vacation, that’s a big deal. It could be something as extreme of they didn’t get that job that they wanted. But you want to make sure you can tell that before and after and that it’s a big deal to the person and to the jurors. On a side note, a lot of the ways I evaluate how good a case is, is what are the types of non-economic damages witnesses I can get? Like, who can tell the before and after story? How strong are they? You know, can they tell good stories? One rule of thumb that I’ve heard people use is, you know, one witness, one story. You don’t want to use the same witness for a lot of different stories and you don’t want to tell the same story over and over again.

(09:11):

Now, we’ve talked about non economics, we’ve talked about knowing the client’s story. Now let’s talk about the economic damages. I think in a lot of cases, attorneys leave money on the table by not doing what I call running up the score. When, when identifying what is the harm that the client’s been through, this doesn’t mean you’re manufacturing damages, you’re not binding harm that wasn’t there. You’re looking for things that you may have missed. So start by looking at the medical records and saying, is there any other future care that’s going to be needed? Not just in the media future, but 10, 15, 20 years from now. We’ve had cases where a doctor said, you know what? I think there’s a high likelihood that they’re going to have arthritis in 30 years because of this injury. Well, that’s going to require medication that’s required doctor’s appointments, that’s going to affect their physical impairment.

(10:01):

It’s going to have this massive effect on the case, but you have to look for it and ask the question. Another way you can do that is getting a meeting with a doctor and then asking for a written narrative, walking through that information. The other thing you want to look for is medical bills that you may have missed in the future. You know, are they going to need prescriptions? Are they going to need any sort of physical therapy if they had hardware put in? Most of the time hardware has to get put out if there’s taken out, if there’s a surgery. Did you identify that on the lost wages front? A lot of times we, I see attorneys miss lost wages in the past because they don’t ask the clients enough questions. You would look for things like, is there overtime involved? If they worked on average 55 hours a week and their pay rate is 20 bucks an hour, you actually get overtime for that time and a half if they have their own business.

(10:55):

I’ve had success getting letters from their customers saying that they were unable to do the job for these months or weeks at a time. It had a really great case involving an amazing woman who was a bookkeeper. And we got each of her clients to write a letter saying that she did not work with us from, you know, January through April. And she said it was because she was hurt. Which is good evidence of what you’re going to present to a jury. The same goes for in the future. Now if you can look for opportunities, let’s say the doctor says they’re going to have to retire three years early, well that just added three years of loss, of earning capacity in the future. And we use SOPs and checklists to remind ourselves to catch all of these different things. But the big theme is it takes time and you have to make sure that you’re being thoughtful for how you look at it on the case.

(11:47):

Also you can’t manufacture damages that aren’t there. You really have to know the story. I look at our job as to tell the truth and to put the client’s story in a way that the jury can understand what our clients have been through. I heard Mark Lanier say that at one of his seminars, and that was really illuminating to me and took a lot of stress away when I realized, okay, my job is to tell the truth. It’s not to try to hide something or make something up. And so to recap, number one, you want to know the story. Number two, know your client’s story. Number three, know what they went through the injury itself. Number four, you want to go through and look for other opportunities on medical bills. And number five, really make sure you’ve run up the score on loss of earning capacity.

Kevin Tully (12:35):

That was amazing. Jack, you talked a lot about in the beginning kind of volume versus value maybe is one way to put it, right, not taking on the volume to allow yourself the time to increase the value. If somebody decided they wanted to take that type of approach with their practice, what are the different ways they can think about kind of slicing and dicing the cases that are coming in to identify the ones they want versus the ones they want to either refer out or just not take in the first place?

Jack Zinda (13:06):

That’s a great question and I think that there’s, there’s two types of people that that could apply to. One would be someone who has an established practice and the other could be someone that doesn’t have an established practice and maybe isn’t getting in a lot of cases for the first person, I would go through all of your cases that you have resolved, let’s say in the last two years, and you could make a bigger sample size, but just use two years for this example. Then figure out which one of those cases are the ones that would meet that criteria that you say, okay, I don’t want to take a case that is worth less than a hundred thousand dollars ever again. First see do I have enough of those cases to make that possible and pay my bills and keep the lights on. And then I would look at all of the cases where I got that result are higher and see what were the common denominators that led to that information and when did I realize it.

(14:01):

For us, we look at what’s the source of recovery and then we look at what is the, what are the injuries when the person came in to meet with us. And then you create a checklist that you review each and every time and then you refine it. As you get more and more information. You can also gradually work into this where you say, okay, I’m going to start with my threshold being 5000 1st and then a hundred thousand or 25,000, you know, and work your way up from there. Now if you don’t have the case history or the numbers or understand how to identify it, you could go find a mentor and say, Hey, can I talk to you about examples of cases where this result met this threshold? You could also look at things like verdict search, which will have verdicts that people have gotten. You can check your local trial lawyer listserv to get that information and try to get a mentor or other resources that can show you the types of cases that would meet that criteria.

Kevin Tully (15:02):

Yeah. In addition to all of this that you’re doing to build value, like really sounds like leaving no stone unturned, how do you then take that and push it across the finish line? And I, I imagine it’s easy to say that you present all this to the defense and the negotiation phase, but let’s talk a little bit about that part of it versus like also trying to bring it to trial and how does the value of the case change between those two outcomes?

Jack Zinda (15:34):

Yeah, so I think one, you want to look at every case as if it’s going to go to trial. Now obviously a vast majority do not, but I start with that mindset and then I set the value of the case as if it would be tried. And then I’m going to work my way backwards a little bit. If I have to spend more money on the case, let’s have a case that is going to go to trial in May, but I don’t have to hire my experts until February. Or let’s say probably early like January. Well then I’m not going to have to spend that money until January, more than likely. And so then I would take a little bit off of what the trial verdict value is because of the risk of going to trial and then also the expense I would’ve to pay an expert. And I do that in a formulaic way because a lot of times attorneys fool themselves into reducing the value too much because they’re worried about actually going to trial and spending the time to do that. So we have our team use a formula to set that up so we don’t undervalue a case. And in my experience, attorneys tend to undervalue rather than overvalue cases.

Kevin Tully (16:42):

Yeah. Last question from me. Is there, is there anything with the amount of time that a case takes to resolve that either benefits or hurts your value of the case?

Jack Zinda (16:55):

I think time is our enemy in most cases. Because people heal, they look better, their life moves on, witnesses pass away, married couples get divorced, which I’ve had happen, which can really throw a case for a wrench of all of a sudden the ex-wife is, you know, witness against you in the case. So the sooner you can get a case resolved, the better. Now there’s limitations on that. You have to make sure that you can maximize the value, which means you know how hurt client is. And depending on how big the insurance policy is or the source of recovery, you may have to wait longer because you have to make sure you get a full idea of how hurt they are. But in general, the sooner you get a case resolved, the better.

Kevin Tully (17:42):

Awesome. Anything more you want to add before we wrap up on this topic?

Jack Zinda (17:46):

No, this has been great. If you have any more questions or want to talk about this further, please feel free to reach out to me. You can contact me at zindalaw.com or email me at jack@zindalaw.com. Thanks a lot.

(18:06):

Thanks for listening to today’s episode of The Effective Lawyer. You can learn more about our team and find other episodes of our podcast at zindalaw.com. As always, we’d appreciate that you subscribe, rate and review the pod. Thanks.

How To Become A Great Personal Injury Lawyer Today

Last updated on: March 7, 2023

Summary

In this episode, Zinda Law Group CEO and founder, Jack Zinda, gives you quick tips on how to become a great personal injury lawyer. There’s more to it than having a nickname and fancy marketing!

Discussed in this Episode:

Is this what I want to do?
Make a list
Get repetitions

Is This What I Want to Do?

It’s impossible to have the drive to be great if you’re not in love with what you do. You must first identify what you love about being a lawyer and hyper focus on that area.

Make a List

Make a list of the types of cases you’re passionate about, other lawyers you look up to, and what makes those lawyer’s practice’s special.

Get Repetitions

Once you figure out what you’re passionate about, get as much experience with that type of case as you can. That might mean volunteering time for another lawyer or doing research about the subject.

You can reach Jack at:

jack@zindalaw.com
512-246-2224

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Managing Consultants At A Law Firm

Last updated on: February 20, 2023

Summary

In this episode, Zinda Law Group CEO and founder, Jack Zinda, gives you quick tips on how to manage vendors and consultant at a law firm. This knowledge came from a lot of trial and error so Jack can save you some time and money in this episode. 

Discussed in this Episode:

• Why lawyers have a target on their backs when it comes to vendors
• How to hire vendors
• Aligning incentives and settings KPIs
• When it’s time to part ways
• and more

You can reach Jack at:

jack@zindalaw.com

512-246-2224

 

Transcript 

 

Welcome to The Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda and I’ll be your host. 

Welcome to the Effective Lawyer Podcast. I’m Kevin Tully, the Chief Marketing Officer at Zinda Law Group. With me, as always, is our lead trial lawyer and CEO Jack Zinda. And today we’re going to be talking about how not to get ripped off by vendors. Jack, how are you doing today? 

I’m doing great man. I love this topic because it’s happened to me so many times, that I can literally explain every situation you should not do. 

Awesome. So we’re looking forward to hearing about your experiences. Where do you want to kick off? 

Well, I want to go back to the beginning when I first opened my practice. I had a lot of needs, whether it was how do I get money to run the practice, how do I get cases, um, how do I hire people, how do I fire people? And a lot of things I didn’t have expertise in. So, I looked to hire vendors, , to help me solve those problems. And as lawyers, the old saying is if , you can’t find the sucker in the room, it’s probably you. And I think that applies to lawyers a lot of times. And in fact, we are the worst of all. , we’re the worst of all areas in that because we think we’re smart and we are and we’re expertise in this one area and we think that makes us experts in everything else. And a lot of companies and vendors take advantage of that arrogance to put us in bad situations where they essentially rip you off and you don’t get what you paid for. So that was my first experience in marketing, in finance, and in HR. Then it kind of grew from there and I made just about every mistake you can imagine. 

Yeah. If your inbox looks like mine does, there’s no shortage of marketing vendors out there contacting law firms frequently. Um, what are some of the pitfalls? What do you, what do you look out for? 

I think the first thing you must figure out is what is your need and is it a core need that you need help with? Um, so for example, if I need more cases, um, how do I need to try to go about getting those? And then do I have the internal expertise to do it or do I not have the internal expertise to do it? So that’s step one. What do I need from this person? And am I doing it based on an advertisement or something that I need as an organization? , the second thing is understanding what is the type of vendor you want to work with? Do you need someone who’s from a large company that has lots of resources? Are you looking for a specialist who’s really niche? Are you looking for something in between? Um, and again, it thinks about it like an interview process. 

So just using the example of marketing for example, because that’s the one we all get up with every day. Right. Just like you were saying, Kevin, I probably have 300 emails between when we started the podcast and right now promising me all the cases I want for low cost. Search engine optimization is an area you get hit up. I’m sure you do. I do it all the time. Well, first off, what’s the objective of search engine optimization? Right. Well, it depends on what you’re trying to achieve. I look at all marketing as trying to get me clients. So, the question I want to ask, how will this get me clients? What an SEO company may want you to focus on is how this gets you to rank higher? You don’t care about rankings as a lawyer. And that’s the first mistake people make. They focus on what the vendor wants them to focus on versus what the actual outcome is. And that’s important because how do you know what you’re paying for? Right. Um, you know, if I go buy a car, I’m trying to buy a mode of transportation, you know, so know what you’re trying to buy. And so, SEO pops up in that area a lot.  

We talked a little bit about small versus large. Um, there’s such a difference between working with a group that’s a large organization that has multiple layers of communication and people involved, um, red tape on their end and all the rest versus, , dealing with an individual who, , can be more flexible but more limited in resources. And if they go on vacation, then nothing’s happening. Right. Do you have a preference between those two? Or, or when do you think of using them differently? 

I think a lot of it comes down to the resources you need. So for example, if um, if I need some real technical expertise, let’s say I need someone to help on website design and it’s something visual I need, I’m going to try to find someone who’s smaller, who’s good at that craft. , especially if it’s a one-off project versus if I go to an agency. You must understand when you go to a large organization, there’s a lot of people that must get paid. So, a lot of times if you’re dealing with like a marketing agency, you’re going to have what’s called an account manager. And that account manager is getting paid to take care of you. They’re not actually doing the work, other people are doing the work. And so you have to understand that there’s going to be layers of cost associated with that. 

So a lot of times if it is a, you know, important to brand or messaging or it’s unique, it has a high level of expertise, I’m going to want a smaller group that has expertise in that area. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Now it may be a little more expensive than the bigger group, but a lot of times you’re going to be dealing with the person doing the work and you’re going to get the most out of it. And examples that I can give are, you know, with marketing, for example, if you’re doing like AdWords or if you’re doing graphic design work or areas like that. And if you’re thinking about a lawyer, for example, if you have a trucking case, you’re going to hire an accident reconstructionist that has experience in trucking cases and not just go hire a group that knows about accidents.  

Another distinction is consultants versus vendors, right? So, we’re talking about vendors kind of with a, an umbrella to it. There are different things to look out for when working with consulting groups versus vendors who are kind of more in the weeds doing the day-to-day work? 

A hundred percent. Like, so a vendor to me is someone I’m going to hire to do a specific job. A consultant is going to give me advice on something. And one of the red flags is if they can’t articulate how they’re actually going to help you get the result, if it’s just some ambiguous or going to somehow help you achieve some grand thing. But it’s not specific, run the other way. I always get back to when you’re dealing with anybody, what’s the expectation of the relationship? What do you want the outcome to be? And if someone who’s a consultant can’t articulate that, then they’re not going to be able to help you achieve that outcome. Often consultants can be great because they are an independent person in the room who can give you advice. They have no dog in the fight. So if I need a marketing consultant, they can help me evaluate the vendors I’m looking at. 

If I need a financial consultant, they can help me raise money for a business or for the law firm. , and they’re not actually the ones getting paid by the people that are doing the service. Um, so I think that’s one area that’s, that’s helpful. You know, one question that I get a lot is how do I evaluate a marketing company or a financial company or any of these vendors that you’re looking at, even a court reporting service? , and I think you want to first think about it just like a job interview. Number one, decide what you want. So what’s your outcome? Number two, what are the qualifications that you want from these people? , number three, talk to multiple vendors. I think that’s like the biggest thing is don’t just take the first person that’s sent you an email or gave you a call, talked to multiple folks, then have them paint a picture for what it is you’re actually going to have them do and what the outcome’s going to be. 

Now obviously if it’s a small task, small project, you don’t have to put a lot of time into this, but if you’re doing something like a search engine optimization contract or you’re going to go to a new bank or you need to borrow a bunch of money, you want to hit the pause button and do things in a really methodical way so you don’t make a mistake and take it from me. Like when I first started my practice, I hired a lot of charlatans and it cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lot of heartache to figure that out. So, the third thing is once you’ve talked to them, got a vision, get references. If they cannot give you references for the same or similar industry, run the other way. A lot of times I like to hire companies outside of legal because when vendors see us marketing agencies, they see a giant dollar sign. 

They’re like, oh, I can triple mark this cuz this lawyer will pay me whatever it takes because quote, these cases are so valuable. So, I like to find people that are in adjacent industries, maybe medical, maybe financial services cuz it’s a similar type of approach to whatever you’re doing, but they’re not going to mark it up 10 times just because you are a law firm. Um, but talk to references and talk to them, especially if it’s a big contract you’re about to give up. Um, and ask them to explain how they helped them. We had a situation where we hired a company to create some, , custom software for us and they gave us a reference and we talked to the references and the references said they sucked. I was like, wow, that is a gutsy play. You gave me your three best. 

So, we’ve got to identify the need and if anybody’s struggling to identify what their firm needs, go see our podcast about, data analytics that’ll tell you quickly where your needs are. Um, we’ve got to evaluate the vendors, those best practices with, with interviews and references. Um, one of the things I’ve, I’ve seen you do is, um, and I can imagine this being a situation that a lot of people experience where I’m super busy, busy, I need help from a vendor, I don’t have time to go find the vendor. You have a, I think a good strategy of offloading that work to somebody else at your firm to bring you the top three vendors with pricing, right. And never without the pricing component. You want to talk about that a little bit? 

I think that’s a great point. I mean, you just nailed the hit, nailed a right on the head. A lot of times they want to get to the decision maker. I call them time vampires. And if you have your own business or you’re a lawyer, you know that your life is surrounded by time. Vampires, people don’t want to take you to quote, launch, take you to coffee, have a zoom meeting to try to pitch you on whatever they have. So, I have a policy where I’ll have either, um, an assistant and it could be your office manager, go talk to the people I’m considering and say, you will not get a meeting with this person unless you give a range of pricing. And we have a hard and fast rule in that and that prevents them from getting around them talking to you for an hour and a half to then tell you the, the price and maybe you don’t want to pay the price. , and I’ve used that as a lot of success because a lot of the reasons you make bad decisions is fatigue. You’re just worn down. You really need that marketing agency and you have got to decide. So, you just go with the first one that, that sent you the proposal over. 

Yeah. Let’s talk about pricing for a second. Are you often trying to negotiate rates, , with vendors? Are you taking them further word that that’s the value they’re going to provide and trying to kick off the relationship without having to have that hard discussion upfront? Where do you fall on that? 

, that’s a great question. Um, you know, I don’t look at things in terms of cost. I look at it in terms of value. So, if I could pay $10,000 and they could get me a hundred cases or pay someone a thousand dollars and they’d get me no cases, you know, obviously one’s a better investment than the other. Um, and I want to know what the marketplace is for the services that are being provided. I learned the hard way that if you go too cheap, you get what you pay for and it’s almost better not to do it at all. I mean, I’m thinking of so many examples where I hired someone to help me, you know, a recruiter who was like the cheap one. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> who didn’t find me anybody or found me bad people. And then I hired the quote expensive one and they found people in a 10th of the time. 

They were great hires. I had to do almost none of the work, and I was very happy to pay the money to the folks. Yeah. Now as a reminder, most of the listeners to this, you are lawyers so you’re not going to be good at this naturally. So, make sure that you follow these steps because if you just hire the most expensive, you may not be getting value and they kind of prey on that. And I look at how many people are in a meeting. I mean, Kevin and I had a meeting a while ago where seven people showed up to pitch us on something and I was like, this is not going to work there. This is a lot of people they’re paying just to be here to tell me these things. They could have been done in an email. I was like, this is going to be expensive. I was just waiting for the chair. Sticker shock. 

All right, so, um, after the, the evaluation phase, um, talk to me about kind of kicking off relationships, setting expectations, that, that sort of thing. 

Everything in every relationship of life is about expectations. When a client hires you, you have an initial consultation meeting where you explain how the case is going to go and what you think you can achieve. For them it’s the same relationship with the vendor. You want to make sure, okay, what do you promise me that you’re going to get me? How long will it take to achieve these results and how often are we going to touch base and how am I going to hold you accountable? I’m going to use the example as SEO just cuz that’s the easiest that, you know, people get hit up on those a lot. So, if you met with an SEO vendor, you’d say, okay, I need to get this many cases from how much money I’m paying you. It’s important. Back to that idea, what do you care about? You do not care about rankings; you care about cases. 

If they are reputable, they will get it. If they’re not, they’re going to try to like to talk about something else, confuse you and overtalk it. So, then you get an agreement, you believe that I can get x number of cases by y date. I know you can’t guarantee it. There are no guarantees in these things, but you think this is a reasonable expectation. Great. What sort of reporting are we going to use to hold you accountable for those results? So you need some sort of, even if it is a graph with cases over time, and then you need a frequency that you’re going to get those updates from that person. , and a lot of times you don’t want to get too caught up in the weeds with how they’re either achieving or not achieving the results more so than what the results are themselves. So back to the SEO example. 

If everyone agreed that 10 cases in six months is a reasonable expectation and you are six months in the relationship and you have zero cases and you say, well the rankings and the algorithms and the updates and you know, you didn’t give us enough content, yada yada yada, zoom out, you don’t care. You hired them to do a job and the objective of the job was to get your cases, hold them accountable for that and then decide if the relationship is worth continuing or not based, based on the results that you’re getting. Not based on what an account manager or someone that is. Their job is to keep you happy. It’s telling you, um, I cate a situation a long time ago where we were dealing with a, a marketing vendor and the account manager convinced me to stay on another six months. We weren’t getting the results we wanted. 

He said, oh, don’t worry. I put my, you know, career on the line for this. Trust me, we’re going to make it right. And a week later the guy took another job at another agency that we had been interviewing before. So, it told me like, okay, his job was to keep me happy, not necessarily to deliver me results. , that’s also one of the downfalls of going with a big company versus the small person, you know, small company is you’re dealing with the person doing the work. The more removed from that, the harder it is to, um, understand what’s happening. I found that really works well even with banking relationships. You know, we have a, a great relationship with a small bank in, round Rock and that’s been amazing, and we’ve been approached by Chase and Bank of America, and I wouldn’t pass on that relationship for anything because of the personal touch we get with them versus someone else. Yeah, 

For sure. So, identifying the need, evaluating the options, setting expectations, holding accountable, um, any other steps in this kind of workflow that we’re thinking about, 

I would also look at delegating those responsibilities to someone on your team, even if they’re not an expert in it, just have them own doing those steps. Because if you’re a lawyer like me, you’re busy and you’re going to forget to do these things and make it a checklist. Make it a simple one pager. Here’s what we do when we’re hiring a vendor. I want to always talk to three, I want to get pricing before they get to my desk. We’re going to have a report, we’re going to have evaluation periods and ask your office major, Hey, you’re in charge of this. Whether it’s a copy service, a deposition court reporter company, , a marketing agency or anything in between. If you follow those steps, you really don’t have to do a whole lot to, to get great results from these things. 

Um, so we’ve got about a hundred employees at the firm. How many vendor relationships would you guess that we have? I’m putting you on the spot. 

Oh man number but I bet we have big and small at least a hundred. Yeah. You know, and if we said like key, one’s probably 20 to 25 if not more. Yeah.  I look at those like how I look at someone working at the law firm, like as an employee. Right. You know, you’ve seen our organizational chart and a lot of times I’ll put a vendor in as someone on the org chart because I’m holding them accountable for the same results that I would if they worked here. 

Yeah. Um, when do you, , and you touched on this a little bit, but when do you prefer a vendor versus an employee and how do you make that distinction? 

I think if you’re experimenting with something that you’re not sure is going to work, a vendor’s a great experiment. I think if you don’t have the expertise and it’s very expensive to get it a vendor’s great. Um, I also think if the employee you’re going to need to hire is very difficult to um, get. , and a lot of times, you know, in the examples I think of as accounting, um, financial, um, you know, before you came along a lot of marketing we needed a lot of vendors for that. , because each individual role is very expensive and if you went to go try to hire those employees, it would take you several years or a year more to hire them.  

Um, and then back to the, the small versus big for a second. Are there examples of functions that you do want a big organization like say for example, maybe, data entry so you’re not worried about that, that single person going on vacation? You know, there’s a team of people that can keep that turn in the background 

Software. It definitely doesn’t go with a small company on software. We have software developers that we use to develop our own, but if we’re going to buy something off the shelf, I want the 800-pound gorilla that’s not going anywhere. I want Microsoft, I don’t want, I know is Linux still a thing? 

So, the reason why with software and stuff like that, it’s important is you don’t want them to disappear in your whole platform is based on it. I remember there was a company called Word Perfect, I don’t know if they’re still around, but a lot of law firms used them and then when they went away people were out of luck because they had to change to Word, and it was a big mess and they stopped updating the stuff. So, when it comes to software, I always go to a big provider. 

Thanks for listening to today’s episode of The Effective Lawyer. You can learn more about our team and find other episodes of our podcast at zindalaw.com. As always, we’d appreciate it if you subscribed, rated and reviewed the pod. Thanks. 

How To Land A Job At A Law Firm

Last updated on: February 13, 2023

Summary

In this episode, Zinda Law Group CEO and founder, Jack Zinda, gives you quick tips on how to give yourself the best chance of landing a job at a firm.

Discussed in this Episode:

• Customize your resume
• Identify the firms
• Look for Opportunities
• How can you help the firm?

Customize Your Resume

Why do you want to work for a particular firm? Be specific with your resume and share your intentions. When you join a firm, you’re a part of a team and a generic resume doesn’t show why you’d be a good fit.

Identify the Firms

Find 3 law firms that you really like and get to know everything about them. For one, so you can give a good interview and two, so you can know if you really want to work there.

Look for Opportunities

Don’t just submit resumes, look for events or other opportunities to meet lawyers. Sometimes all it takes is one really good recommendation from a trial lawyer.

How Can You Help the Firm?

It’s not about how they can help you. If you want to get hired, you need to be able to show what qualities you can bring to the table. 

You can reach Jack at:

jack@zindalaw.com

512-246-2224

 

Transcript

Welcome to The Effective Lawyer, a podcast for ambitious attorneys who want to improve their practice. My name is Jack Zinda and I’ll be your host today. I want to talk about how to land a job at a law firm or a trial law firm, or a personal injury law firm. I get approached all of the time by young attorneys saying, “hey, I want to get a job at X firm. How do I do it?” Or, “hey, I want to get a job at your firm. How do I do it?” I see them overlook some really easy opportunities to help land those jobs.  I’m a little hesitant to do this because I’m worried that every applicant we get at our law firm moving forward is going to follow these steps verbatim. But I guess that shows a lot of aptitude and effort if you’re going to reach out and listen to this and follow these steps.

Number one, customize your resume and cover letter. We get tons of resumes and cover letters that are generic. Let’s say I want to work at a law firm that handles cases in a particular state. Talk about why you want to work at this particular firm. Number two, identify the firms that you really want to work at. Don’t go after a hundred, pick your three favorites and go after them. Put all of your energy to getting a job at the one of those three law firms. Number two, research the place you want to work. Know about the people. Know the culture, know the history, look at the website, looked at LinkedIn. Look at the bios of the partners, one to make sure you really want to work there. And two, so in your interview you can talk about how great they’re or in your cover letter or things you like about it. Number three, be persistent. Um, one of the partners at the firm currently I think applied two or three times before they got an interview. And it wasn’t because they were getting turned down. We just had a lot of applicants at the time and they were persistent and they finally got an interview and got the job and they’ve been here forever. So, be persistent when you want to work somewhere.

This podcast is presented by Zinda Law Group, a nationwide personal injury firm. For over 10 years, the experienced lawyers at ZLG have been partnering with outside counsel across the United States on all types of personal injury and wrongful death cases with over 30 attorneys Zinda Law Group has paid out millions in referral and joint venture fees since 2015. To learn more about partnering with Zinda Law Group, please email us at referrals@zindalaw.com. We’ll schedule a time for you to meet with Jack Zinda or one of our trial lawyers to discuss your case.

Next, look for opportunities to meet either associates or partners at different events. Check out LinkedIn, state Bar Association, local, uh, bar associations, happy hours, and don’t just try to focus on meeting the partners. Meet the associates cuz that’s a good foot in the door. I know when someone in our firm recommends someone, we take that really highly into consideration. And so meeting people is really helpful. Reach out directly to lawyers at the firm, either associates or partners and just ping them directly. You can usually find their email on state bar or LinkedIn, um, to say, Hey, I’m interested in working there. And trust me, people are always flattered when you say that nobody’s offended that you’re asking to work at a firm or saying you’re showing some interest. Um, I always take it as flattery, even if we’re not looking for someone, um, in the interview itself, paid a vision for how you can help the firm.

This is another area I see a lot of interviews go the wrong direction. They talk about how I can help them. Hey, I want to move to Austin so bad. Can I work at your law firm? Side note, that’s the worst reason to say you want to work at somewhere because where they’re physically located. Okay? Your employer does not care that you want to live in Austin. They want to know how you can help them. Okay? And I, I kinda look at that as almost a red flag cause maybe they’re just applying to work here cause they want to live in a certain city. Um, so paint a vision for how you can help them and be dogged. I mean, I have a rules, I probably shouldn’t say this again. If someone drops off a resume in person that they get an interview. Now I I don’t want to say that’s always the case in case you don’t get an interview and you dropped off your resume.

But in general, I like to follow that rule cause that’s how I got my first job. So be dogged, be persistent. Find the firm you want to work at, talk to people in the community and hopefully that helps you get the, your job over your dreams. Until next time, or if you want questions answered about how to, uh, interview somewhere, just want to, you know, chat about where I should go work, feel free to reach out to me. I love talking to, um, newer attorneys about their careers and their growth. Uh, feel free to reach out to me directly and until next time, thanks.

Thanks for listening to today’s episode of The Effective Lawyer. You can learn more about our team and find other episodes of our podcast at zindalaw.com. As always, we’d appreciate that you subscribe, rate and review the pod. Thanks.

How to Negotiate a Claim with Amica Insurance

Last updated on: February 5, 2023

CALL (800) 863-5312 TO SPEAK WITH A PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER FOR FREE

Oftentimes, personal injury claimants give up and settle for less when negotiating with an insurance company. There are, of course, many reasons for this. While insurance companies have the time and luxury to stall on personal injury claims, most personal injury claimants have to move on with their lives. They do not have time to argue with an insurance company agent for weeks or even months to get a fair settlement.

If you or your loved one is or will be negotiating a personal injury settlement with Amica Mutual Insurance and need assistance, call Zinda Law Group at (800) 863-5312 for a free consultation with one of our personal injury lawyers.

What an Insurance Company Will Generally Compensate

If you are negotiating a claim with Amica Mutual Insurance, it may be in your best interest to speak with an experienced lawyer. Once a person is found at fault for an accident, the liable insurance company may pay the injured person for the following types of damages:

• expenses
• Lost income
• Permanent physical disability or disfigurement
• Loss or damage of property
• Pain and suffering

How TO Obtain a Fair Settlement from an Insurance Company

Though you should not expect an insurance company to capitulate to your demands, you should not lose hope of obtaining a reasonably fair settlement from an insurance company. However, it is not always a walk in the park. Diligent preparation is key. Below are some tips that we recommend that you follow so you can maximize the settlement you may receive from an insurance company.

Write Down Everything About the Accident

As soon as you are able, write down everything you can about the accident. Human memory is fallible. Because getting an insurance claim resolved can take weeks to months, you are not likely going to remember everything. That is why you want some method to record everything about the accident.

Make sure you write everything about the accident in great detail. This means that you mention the time, date, weather, people involved, conversations, and other important details of the accident. Not only should you write down the details of the accident itself, but also the effect the accident has had on your life. If, for instance, you are suffering from pain post-accident, be sure to write about the intensity and frequency of the pain.

Write a Convincing Demand Letter

Because the demand letter is often where you ask for the amount you are seeking, you want to treat it extremely seriously. Depending on the demand letter, your settlement can be quick and favorable or slow and unfavorable. An experienced attorney may represent you in drafting a demand letter on your behalf. Consider the following questions before you even touch the keyboard:

• What were your injuries?
• Was the other person in the accident the reason why you sustained those injuries?
• What kind of medical treatment did you receive and how much did it cost?
• Did you lose income because of the accident?
• If so, how much did you lose?
• What other damages did you suffer?
• How much do you think you will need in cash amount to compensate you for all your losses?

Liability

A strong demand letter will point out the reasons why the other party is at fault for the accident. You will want to first start out by describing the accident in detail. In clear language, explain the location of the accident and what happened immediately before and after the accident. Also, explain how the accident occurred. If you have any evidence, you should note that you have evidence. For instance, perhaps there were witnesses to the accident. If so, write the names of those witnesses in your letter.

Do Not Admit Fault

Even if you believe you may have been partly at fault for the accident, do not admit fault when communicating with the insurance company. If you do so, you are essentially making it easier for the insurance company to argue that you do not deserve the amount of money you seek. Remember, it is the insurance company to argue why you do not deserve a certain settlement. Therefore, you should always deny any responsibility for the accident.

Injuries and Treatment

Though it may be personal, your injuries and medical treatment are something you should share with an insurance claims adjuster because the costs of medical treatment often make the bulk of the compensation received in a settlement. Describe your pain and all of the negative impacts your injury has had on your daily life. If you received an injury that may lead to life-long pain or disfigurement, be sure to emphasize that.

There is a caveat, however. Do not exaggerate your injuries. Insurance claims agents at Amica are experienced professionals. They can tell when a claimant is falsifying his or her injuries immediately. Also, if you know the medical terminology, you may consider being precise when describing your injuries.

Describe Your Losses

Do not forget to list all of the losses you experienced due to the injury in your demand letter. List out the doctors whom you saw, hospitals you visited, and the amount you spent at each. You should also write down the amount of time you were off of work due to the accident and the lost income due to the time off. The losses do not have to be merely tangible, monetary losses. You can include the embarrassment you have due to an injury or unusual discomforts as well in your demand letter.

Attach Supporting Evidence

Along with the letter, attach documents such as your pay stubs and medical bills to provide evidence to the insurance company that you indeed suffered losses. 

Responding to a Low Offer from an Insurance Company

First, do not let your emotions get the best of you. Yelling at an insurance claims agent or writing a nasty letter will get you nowhere. Rather, you should consider writing a response full of facts–backed by evidence–why the offer given to you by the insurance company is unreasonably low.

Below is an example of such a response:

Dear Mr. Insurance Claims Agent,

In our telephone conversation today, you relayed Amica Insurance Company’s offer to settle my claim for $1,000. Unfortunately, I believe that this offer is unreasonable for the following reasons.

First, I was not at fault for the accident whatsoever. Though you explained to me that because I was the rear car that I had the primary duty to avoid hitting the car in front of me, you neglect to mention that the front car was stopping erratically and weaving in and out of lanes. Just for your information, I do have footage from my dash camera. Furthermore, the police report indicates that the driver of the front car had been under the influence at the time of the accident.

Second, you explained in our phone call that the $1,000 was justified because I only suffered minor bruises. However, according to my doctor, I also suffered internal organ damage, which requires multiple surgeries in the near future. My doctor did make a report if you wish to see the exact details.

Because of the foregoing, I believe that I am entitled to the original claim of $15,000. However, I may be willing to accept an offer that may be slightly lower than that.

Please provide me with a response within two weeks after you receive this letter.

Thank you for your time.

Claimant   

Should I Negotiate a Personal Injury Settlement Without a Lawyer?

You may be able to negotiate a claim with Amica Insurance on your own, such as if the accident was not severe and you suffered only minor injuries. However, this is not always advisable, especially if you are relatively inexperienced in the claim filing process. If your injuries or property damage were severe, it is likely in your best interest to consult with a personal injury lawyer during the negotiation  .

What is a “Reservation of Rights” Letter?

Sometimes, an insurance company will send you what is called a “reservation of rights” letter. All that this letter means is that the insurance company is investigating your claim and that it may choose not to pay you if it finds out that the accident is not covered under its policy. An insurance company files this during the process of settlement because it does not want to be liable to you just because it started the settlement process with you but later finds out that the accident is not covered under its policy.

CONTACT A PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER

The experienced attorneys at Zinda Law Group may be able to help you negotiate your claim with Amica Insurance. After an accident, you shouldn’t have to worry about affording legal representation, which is why we work on a contingency fee basis. You don’t owe us anything unless we win your case.

Call us today at (800) 863-5312 for a free consultation with one of our personal injury lawyers.

Meetings with attorneys by appointment only.

USAA Car Accident Settlements

Last updated on: February 4, 2023

CALL (800) 863-5312 TO SPEAK WITH A USAA CAR ACCIDENT SETTLEMENT ATTORNEY

Car accidents can inflict long-term hardship on victims. If you were involved in a car accident, you may be entitled to compensation.

USAA specializes in processing insurance claims that result from automobile accidents. Dealing with USAA may be difficult if you lack the experience and knowledge to do so. A car accident settlement attorney may be able to help you seek adequate compensation for your injuries.

If you have been injured in a car accident, call Zinda Law Group at (800) 863-5312 for a free case evaluation with our USAA car accident settlement attorneys.

What is USAA?

USAA, or the United Services Automobile Association, is a diversified financial services group of companies that offers banking, investing, and insurance to members of the United States Armed Forces and their families. Although the company originally only offered a short list of policies, USAA has since expanded to offer policies in many different categories. This broad range of products allows USAA to cover a wide market and protect military personnel from many different life events.

USAA, unlike other insurance providers, limits its availability solely to military-related individuals. In particular, USAA offers its coverage to U.S. military members, veterans, recommissioned officers, spouses, and children. This narrow scope not only allows USAA to focus more narrowly on the needs of military families, but also gives military families more specialized options when choosing an insurance provider. Notably, many employees of USAA also have ties with the military in their own lives.

Even if you are not eligible for USAA coverage, you may still be forced to deal with the agency if you are involved in a car accident with a USAA-covered driver. In these situations, you may have to speak with USAA representatives and file through their specific claim database. These requirements may become burdensome, especially to a victim with limited experience. Thus, it may be beneficial to retain an attorney who specializes in these settlement negotiations and agreements.

How Does USAA Handle Claims?

Like many other insurance companies, the first step to receiving compensation for your injuries is to file a claim with USAA. USAA utilizes technology-based platforms for this step and many others. These insurance claims can be filed on USAA’s mobile application, website, or through the telephone. However, USAA states that the mobile application is the quickest avenue for filing an automobile insurance claim. The simplest of claims may take an hour, while more complex claims may take weeks to complete.

After the initial insurance claim has been filed by one of the involved parties, a USAA agent typically reaches out to the other party to request more information about the incident. The agent may request information about witnesses, injuries, and even property damage. These telephone interviews can take substantial amounts of time, especially if the involved driver is not expecting the call and, thus, has not prepared the information ahead of time. Additionally, your USAA representative may even utilize an investigator to evaluate the validity of your claims and make an appropriate estimate. You will also receive your repair estimates online in your USAA timeline. USAA has recently introduced a photo estimation online tool that allows clients to receive a damage estimate within four hours of submission.

If you have been injured or sustained property damage during a car accident, you may want to contact an attorney before accepting any USAA settlement offer. Insurance companies may take advantage of your inexperience and offer you a less-than-favorable offer in an attempt to make you settle. If you accept a settlement offer and then later find out that you could have received more, you may be left with an unsatisfactory amount to cover your damages.

What Should I Consider When Determining How Much My Claim is Worth?

Unfortunately, car accidents can cost drivers substantial amounts of time, money, and effort. According to experts, a fatal car accident in the United States can cost upwards of $1,410,000 per death. An accident with a non-fatal disabling injury, on average, costs $78,900, while an accident with non-disabling injuries typically costs at least $10,000, depending on the insurance of the involved parties. Ultimately, car accidents are not cheap, regardless of the specifics of the accident.

If you have been involved in a car accident, it may be crucial for you to determine what minimum amount you would be willing to accept before entering the insurance negotiation room. Insurance adjusters are skilled at mitigating their company’s responsibility. Undeniably, your insurance company will try to pay you the least amount possible. Unfortunately, this may leave you with unresolved damages and bills. When determining what your claim is worth, there are a few factors that you should consider:

• Physical injuries
• Associated trauma
• Vehicle damage
• Actions of the responsible driver
• Your mitigation efforts
• Cause of the accident
• Resulting medical bills
• Permanent bodily harm
• Pain and suffering
• Lost wages

While this list is not exhaustive, it may serve as an important starting point for your calculations. Notably, calculating damages in a car accident settlement suit can be a daunting task. An experienced car accident attorney may be able to help you calculate these damages and get the highest settlement offer possible.

How Can A Lawyer Help Me Get a Settlement for a Car Accident with USAA?

While proceeding to trial may be the only avenue for redress in some cases, many car accident victims choose to settle outside of court for a variety of reasons. Accepting a settlement offer often helps victims move on with their lives and recover from the accident more quickly than victims who choose to proceed to a trial. If you are interested in settling your car accident claim, an attorney may be able to help you. A car accident settlement lawyer may be able to help you:

1. Determine Fault

Unfortunately, it is not always obvious who is at fault for a car accident. Regardless, determining fault is a critical step for those who wish to seek legal redress for their injuries and damages. The negligence standards vary from state to state, and states allocate fault differently as well. Further, some states are “no-fault” insurance states, which requires every auto policy to include personal injury protection, which covers the injured policyholder regardless of who was at fault. A car accident settlement attorney may be able to help you navigate your state’s liability laws to adequately pinpoint the responsible party.

2. Navigate the Filing Process

As previously explained, USAA has a specific process for filing an insurance claim with their company. Even if you are not a customer of USAA, you may be forced to deal with their extensive filing procedures before receiving any compensation. An experienced personal injury attorney may be able to help you speed up this process by completing and submitting your paperwork in a timely manner.

3. Assess Your Damages

Although there are some general factors to consider when determining your damages, the calculation itself may still prove to be difficult for individuals unfamiliar with the insurance system. A car accident attorney may be able to help you seek many different types of damages, including uncommon ones. Thus, it may be especially beneficial to consult with a professional about all of the potential damages available to you.

4. Negotiate a Fair Settlement

When dealing with USAA and other large insurance companies, experience and knowledge of the applicable law are extremely important, especially when attempting to negotiate a fair settlement. An experienced lawyer may be able to represent you in negotiations with the insurance company and help you seek a fair settlement.

Get Help from Zinda Law Group’s Car Accident Settlement Attorneys

Car accidents can impose serious hardship onto a victim and their livelihood. These accidents usually involve high stakes and substantial dollar amounts. Additionally, settlements of these claims may also involve an analysis of state laws governing liability and fault allocation. If you have been involved in a car accident, you should contact a lawyer who handles USAA car accident settlements as soon as possible. An experienced attorney may be able to help you seek legal recourse for any damages related to the car accident and negotiate a fair settlement with the insurance company.

At Zinda Law Group, we have the knowledge and resources necessary to help you seek the highest compensation possible. The sooner you contact our office, the higher the likelihood that we will be able to assist you.

If you or a loved one has sustained damages in a USAA-related car accident, call Zinda Law Group at (800) 863-5312 for a free consultation with one of our personal injury lawyers. You don’t owe us anything unless we win your case. That’s our No Win, No Fee Guarantee.

Meetings with attorneys by appointment only.

Who to Blame for a Dog Bite

Last updated on: February 4, 2023

CALL (800) 863-5312 to speak with Zinda Law Group’s dog bite lawyers

Many people own dogs for their loyalty and affection. In fact, dogs are the most popular pet in America, with over 60 million US households owning one. While a well-trained dog is a source of companionship for a family and their guests, a dog who has not been properly socialized or who feels threatened can quickly become a terror.

If you were hurt by a dog, then you know firsthand just how dangerous they can be under the wrong circumstances. Contacting a dog bite lawyer could be your best shot at getting fair compensation after you sustain your injuries. If you or a loved one has been bitten by a dog, call (800) 863-5312 for a free consultation with a personal injury lawyer at Zinda Law Group today.

Causes of dog bites

Dogs can bite with or without warning for a variety of reasons which is why it is wise to be cautious around unfamiliar dogs. This is also why it is critical that dog owners ensure that their dog is properly trained and socialized before they allow guests into their home or take their dog to a park to interact with others. Some of the more common reasons that a dog might bite a victim include:

Rough Play

Dogs may not understand the difference between playing with adults, children, or other dogs. If they become very excited and get into a very playful mood, then they could start to play a bit too aggressively and nip or bite, as they might if they were playing with another dog. Though these sorts of bites aren’t signs of aggression, they can be just as devastating for the victim.

Protecting Their Pack

If a dog has not been trained to be around people other than its owner or their family, then they may have trouble distinguishing between an invited guest in the home and an intruder in the home. A friend coming over to the house may be interpreted by the dog as someone who is a threat to the family. If this happens, then they may bite out of an effort to keep their family members safe from what they believe to be a danger to themselves or their family.

Threatening or Scary Situations

It does not matter what the reality of the situation is, but rather, what the dog perceives it to be. For example, a stranger reaching out to pet a dog who hasn’t been around many people other than its family could be perceived as very threatening and scary. This can lead to biting out of self-protection. Other situations which a dog perceives to be threatening could be a jogger running by or being backed into a corner by someone who is unfamiliar.

dog bite injuries

Many dog bites do not leave their victims with lasting injuries and may be able to be fully treated with at-home care in the form of cleansing and antibiotic ointment. However, dog bites can also be very serious, even potentially fatal in the worst cases. It is critical that you seek the advice of a medical professional if you have sustained a dog bite as they will be able to give you a better understanding of the injuries you may have sustained. They can also give you tips for preventing the injury from becoming worse over time. While this is by no means an exhaustive list, some of the more common injuries that result from dog bites include:

Infection

Any sort of cut or wound in the skin leaves the body open to potential infection. This risk can be worse in the case of a dig bite given the bacteria in the dog’s mouth and the fact that a dog bite wound can be uneven and difficult to close. Infections are a potential injury that may not be apparent immediately after a dog bite occurs, which increases the importance of taking it seriously and promptly seeking the proper medical attention.

Scarring

A dog bite can cause scarring, including damage to the facial tissue. In some cases, scarring can be so severe that the victim requires plastic surgery to get back to where they were before. Severe scarring can cause damage to a victims’ self-esteem and lead to lasting psychological damage.

Psychological Damage

Being attacked by a dog can be a truly terrifying experience. Victims—even those who had never been afraid of dogs before in their lives—can develop a deep and lasting fear of dogs. They may also develop PTSD after a dog bite, which can require extensive psychological treatment to address fully. The psychological damage from a dog attack can be more severe than a simple trip and fall, and it is important that dog bite victims take the mental and emotional components of their injuries seriously and seek the proper care.

Who do i blame for my dog bite?

After taking care of their medical needs, dog bite victims may begin to wonder about who may be at fault for a dog bite. After all, a dog bite is different from most other categories of personal injury law in that the dog themselves can obviously not be held liable or provide anything in the form of damages. In most cases, the owner of the dog will be the first person from whom a victim may seek to recover from. Dog owners take on a certain degree of responsibility when they decide to purchase a dog, and if they do not live up to this standard, then they can be held liable for their failure.

Other parties may also be held liable in the case of a dog bite. For example, a landlord who knows that one of their tenants has a dog who is dangerous but does nothing about it could potentially share in the blame for a dog bite. Someone who does not own a dog but is keeping watch over it for a period of time could also be held liable. Determining whether someone other than the owner of a dog might share in the liability for a dog bite is a fact-intensive inquiry that depends on the laws of the state in which the bite occurred. This is why getting advice from an experienced dog bite injury lawyer near you soon after your accident is critical.

one-bite laws

The laws regarding liability for dog bites differ between states, and one of the major differences is whether or not a state has a “one-bite rule.” This rule essentially states that a dog gets one free bite before their owner will be held liable for the damage that it causes. In theory, the dog owner does not have a reason to believe that their dog is capable of causing this sort of damage until they see it happen, so states that have enacted a version of this rule will not typically hold owners liable until their dog has acted aggressively before.

In other states, dog owners are held liable under a theory of strict liability. Strict liability states will hold dog owners liable for the injuries that their dog causes regardless of whether they had acted in a negligent way. There are certainly exceptions to the one-bite rule, and every case is heavily dependent on the unique circumstances under which it occurred. A dog bite lawyer in your state will be able to tell you if the one-bite rule or strict scrutiny applies and what the best strategy may be for holding the owner or another party responsible for your injuries.

what is the value of my dog bite case?

If you have been injured in a dog bite accident, then you may be entitled to compensation for your injuries. The amount of these damages, however, will vary greatly depending on the facts of the case. Speaking generally, the total amount that an accident victim may receive in damages will be higher the worse the accident was, and lower if the accident was relatively minor.

Damages from any personal injury accident are generally grouped into economic and non-economic. Economic damages are the tangible, quantifiable costs that a victim incurs. For example, medical bills, damage to personal property, and lost wages from being unable to go to work would all fall under the classification of economic damages.

Non-economic damages are less objective but may still be recovered in a dog bite claim. Typically, non-economic damages refer to the pain and suffering experienced by an accident victim and can even include the emotional or mental suffering that can often accompany dog attacks. Whether your case is relatively minor or involved the fatality of a family member, an experienced dog bite lawyer can use their knowledge of prior cases to give you an estimate of what your case could potentially be worth.

call zinda law group today at (800) 863-5312 for a 100% free consultation

Dog attacks can be a terrifying experience that leave their victims with severe and costly injuries to deal with. However, no victim needs to go through the experience on their own. Zinda Law Group is ready to help you and your family through a very difficult time. In addition, we believe that accident victims shouldn’t have to worry about their ability to afford legal representation, which is why you don’t pay us anything until we win your case for you. You can depend on this No Win, No Fee Guarantee.

Meetings with attorneys are available by appointment only.

What To Expect In a Virtual Personal Injury Attorney Meeting

Last updated on: February 4, 2023

PURPOSE OF AN INITIAL ATTORNEY MEETING

Generally speaking, there are two main purposes of an initial attorney meeting. First, it gives the attorney the chance to begin to evaluate the case of their potential client. Based on their experience and the facts that they are hearing from the accident victim they can begin to formulate an opinion on whether there is a viable claim to be made and what the chances of winning might be. This information can be invaluable to an accident victim because it can determine whether it is worth it to them to go ahead with a claim or whether they would be wasting their time.

Second, it is important to remember in an attorney meeting that you are also evaluating whether the attorney is someone that you want to hire. Ultimately, you are the one who decides whether you believe that the attorney is someone who could represent your interests and whether or not you would like to hire them. Some things to think and inquire about include the attorney’s experience handling similar cases, whether their current caseload has space for your claim, and the resources that they may have access to assist you.

PREPARING FOR YOUR ONLINE PERSONAL INJURY LAWYER MEETING

Meeting with an attorney can be intimidating. However, one benefit of meeting with an attorney virtually is that you are free to speak with them in the comfort of your own home without having to travel to an office. Even with this comfort, though, meeting with an attorney is still something that most people don’t have any experience with. It can be helpful to have a few pointers about how to prepare and what to expect.

First, understand that the attorney you meet with is going to want to know all of the details surrounding your case. This means that you should be prepared to share everything that you remember. A couple of ways to prepare for this could be writing down everything that you remember in a journal or practicing telling the story to a family member or friend. You should also have available to you all of the documentation related to your case that you have been able to gather.

One concern that an accident victim might have about sharing the details of their case with an attorney is that they might somehow damage their case or get in trouble if the attorney shares that information. However, attorneys are not allowed to share any of this information, so you should be completely honest and forthcoming in your meeting. Even if you don’t end up hiring the attorney that you meet with, they are still not allowed to reveal the details of what you shared with them.

FINDING A PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEY

With all of the personal injury attorney advertisements that you likely see on TV or the internet, finding an attorney seems like it should be the easy part. However, the trick is knowing what to look for when researching and talking to attorneys to ensure that you find an attorney who gives you a good shot at receiving maximum compensation for your injuries.

Licensing

To be able to practice in the state that you live in, an attorney must be licensed by that state. This means that the first step of your search needs to be narrowing it down to attorneys who are licensed to practice law in your state. With the availability of the internet and the potential to meet attorneys virtually, this is an important first step to ensure that you don’t waste time meeting with an attorney who practices law thousands of miles from where you live.

Knowledge of Local Laws

Along with being licensed in the state that your accident took place, any potential attorney should be well-versed in the laws of that area. Personal injury law is governed by state law, which means that there are variations from state to state, and being unfamiliar with these differences could potentially be fatal to your claim. Make sure that any attorneys you are speaking with have a good working knowledge of the laws in your area.

Track Record

Just like with any other job, experience for attorneys comes from years on the job. The attorneys that you are considering should have a track record of winning settlements for their clients. A good track record indicates that an attorney has the experience necessary to fight for you by drawing on their past cases to better understand the nuances of your case.

Read More: Zinda Law Group Testimonials

LEGAL TIME LIMITS

When thinking about hiring an attorney to handle your claim, one thing to keep in mind is the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations is the legal term for how long you have to file a claim based on a given accident. The statute varies from state to state, but it will typically be anywhere from two to four years. For example, if you were in a car accident in a state where the vehicular accident statute of limitations is two years, then you will have two years from the date of your accident to file a claim or risk it being dismissed for lack of timeliness. The presence of the statute of limitations means that, while you should be careful and take your time in selecting an attorney, there are time limits that you need to be aware of.

CALL ZINDA LAW GROUP TODAY

Zinda Law Group attorneys stand at the ready to use their experience to help you. We have the technology to be able to set up online personal injury attorney meetings at a time that is convenient to you. We offer free consultations, and you won’t pay us anything until we win your case for you. That’s our No Win, No Fee Guarantee.

If you or a family member has suffered an injury resulting from the negligence of someone else, contact Zinda Law Group today at (800) 863-5312 to set up your virtual consultation with a personal injury lawyer.

 

Types of Compensation For Car Accidents

Last updated on: February 4, 2023

Call (800) 863-5312 to Speak with Car Accident Compensation Lawyers for Free

Car accidents can be dangerous and expensive, as you may have injuries as well as repair costs to your vehicle. Knowing what types of compensation are available may help you determine how much your car accident case is worth.

This article will explain the different types of compensation available for car accidents. A personal injury attorney may be your next step.

If you or a loved one have been injured in a car accident, call our car accident compensation attorneys of Zinda Law Group at (800) 863-5312 for a 100% free case evaluation.

What Can I Recover in a Car Accident?

There are two main categories of compensation. These categories are economic damages and non-economic damages. Both damages will be paid in the form of financial compensation. You may be eligible to recover under one or both categories, depending on the details of your particular accident and the harm you suffered.

Economic Damages

Economic damages may be recoverable for any out-of-pocket expenses that were incurred as a result of your car accident.

Economic damages for yourself

You may be able to recover for any medical expenses associated with injuries you may have sustained as a result of the car accident. Every car accident is different, and you may have minor injuries and few hospital bills or catastrophic injuries that require ongoing care. Some economic damages you may be able to recover as a result of injuries in a car accident include:

• Medical bills
• Follow-up visits to the doctor
• Surgery
• Future treatment and care
• Rehabilitation or physical therapy
• In-home care
• Prescription medications

Medical devices such as wheelchairs

Lost wages and income

If your injuries after a car accident are severe enough that you are unable to work, then you may be able to recover lost wages as a form of economic damage. Your lost wages will be determined based on a calculation of how much you make and how much work you have to miss due to your injuries.

The type of work you do will also factor into calculation. For example, if you are a surgeon and you suffer nerve damage that makes you unable to operate so that you are forced to have to accept work that pays less than a surgeon, you may be able to recover loss of future income.

A car accident compensation attorney may be able to assist in helping you determine how much your car accident case is worth, and possibly how to receive the maximum recovery possible.

Economic damages for loss of a family member

Economic damages will also help cover costs in the unfortunate event that a family member passes away as a result of a car accident. This type of claim is called a wrongful death action. Economic damages can cover some of the costs associated with the death, such as:

• Funeral expenses
• Medical bills leading up to the death
• Legal costs of managing estate

Economic damages for your property

If your car was damaged as a result of a car accident, you may be able to recover the cost of repairs or a replacement vehicle, depending on the extent of the damage. You may still be able to recover compensation from the other driver if they were at fault even if you have insurance. It is important to note that your insurance may not cover everything, and you may have additional costs.

How are economic damages calculated?

Economic damages can be calculated using bill statements and receipts. Economic damages are easy to calculate because there will be a bill proving exactly how much the repairs or hospital visit cost you.

Punitive Damages

Punitive damages are a very rare form of damages. Punitive damages are given as a punishment to the defendant in an effort to deter similar bad behavior in the future. These types of damages may be given in cases where the actions were egregious and done with intention.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages will refer to suffering caused by the emotional distress of dealing with an accident. Each individual will have a different calculation because people deal with trauma and pain in different ways. Non-economic damages are not as easily calculated because they are subjective to what the victim experiences and are determined by various factors. Some common examples of non-economic damages include:

• Pain and suffering
• Mental health counseling
• Substance abuse counseling
• Post-traumatic stress from the accident
• Accident-related anxiety or depression
• Mental anguish
• Long-lasting disabilities or diminished functioning
• Loss of quality of life
• Inconvenience of being injured and unable to enjoy daily activities

How are non-economic damages calculated?

Non-economic damages are calculated based on the severity of the injury, length to recover, and extent of medical treatment. Those who suffer substantial injuries such as the loss of a limb or loss of eyesight will likely receive more compensation for pain and suffering than someone who only suffers broken bones.

Who Will Pay for My Claims?

If you are in a car accident and it was the other driver who was at fault, you may be able to recover damages from that driver’s insurance. If that person does not have enough insurance coverage for all of your damages, you may choose to sue them directly.

What Does Insurance Cover?

All states require drivers to carry insurance to drive. The amount of insurance varies by state. The purpose of insurance is to help alleviate the costs of damages in the event of an accident, for both you and the other driver. Some insurance policies can help you pay for repairs to your vehicle even if the other driver is underinsured or uninsured.

Driving without insurance is against the law in every state, but some drivers choose to drive without insurance. This would normally mean that the other driver will become personally liable to you for your injuries and should pay you directly instead of having their insurance pay you. However, in most cases, the other driver will not have significant assets to pay you for your damages.

What is Uninsured Motorist Coverage?

Uninsured motorist coverage is not required in most states, but some states may require that it be offered for purchase. Uninsured motorist coverage will not apply to damage to the car itself, but will apply to physical injuries to yourself and passengers.

Uninsured motorist coverage pays for:

• Medical bills
• Rehabilitation costs
• Lost wages
• Loss of enjoyment of life
• Long-term care
• Medical devices
• Pain and suffering
• Funeral expenses
• Permanent disabilities

Uninsured motorist coverage is for yourself and your passengers should you be injured in a car accident by someone who does not carry any liability car insurance. If the other driver was underinsured, then your insurance will help cover the costs unpaid for. Uninsured motorist coverage can also be used if the other driver’s insurance denies coverage.

Uninsured motorist coverage can help in situations such as:

Hit and run accidents

• Accidents while traveling out of state
• If you were the passenger in someone else’s car in an accident
• Being hit as a pedestrian

Common Injuries in a Car Accident

The extent of your injuries will determine how much car accident compensation you will receive. Car accidents can cause serious injuries. Some of the most common include:

• Whiplash
• Scrapes, cuts, bruising
• Herniated discs
• Posttraumatic stress disorder
• Wrongful death
• Loss of limb
• Paralysis

How Much Compensation is Possible?

Car accident claims are usually brought under the legal theory of negligence. All negligence cases are unique and different. Because of this, there is no average cost of compensation for a negligence claim or a personal injury claim. Car accidents can vary widely in damages.

The type of negligence that led to your car accident may be minor, such as a bump at a stop light, or major, such as driving under the influence. The severity of injuries will vary person to person and there may be long-term effects to your injuries. All of these will factor in to how much compensation you might receive.

Statute of Limitations

Every state has a statute of limitations, or a time limit, for filing personal injury claims. A car accident can give rise to a personal injury claim. In many states, the statute of limitations for filing a negligence claim is two years, but some states may have a longer time limit.

The statute of limitations begins to run the moment of your injury, so filing a claim as soon as possible is important. It is crucial that you contact a car accident compensation lawyer to help assess your claim for damages as quickly as possible.

Zinda Law Group May Help You Seek Damages

At Zinda Law Group, our car accident compensation attorneys are experienced and have handled many cases involving car accidents. We have the knowledge and resources necessary to help you determine how much your car accident case is worth, what to do next, and how to recover the best possible outcome for your case.

Call us today at (800) 863-5312 for a free and confidential consultation with one of our personal injury lawyers. You will pay nothing unless we win your case. That’s our No Win, No Fee Guarantee.

Meetings with attorneys are available by appointment only.