Taking pictures of your injuries and where the accident occurred and minding what you say at the accident site go a long way in your personal injury claim. Whether you’ve been involved in a motor vehicle accident or a slip and fall, you want to capture your injuries using a cell phone or other handy camera. It also helps capture images of the surrounding areas for context – was the road full of debris? Are speed limit signs visible? Did the slip and fall occur in a poorly lit area? These details could potentially be helpful in your case. Lastly, be careful what you say immediately after an accident. Do not apologize, accept blame, or cast blame. A full investigation will need to be conducted in your personal injury case regarding who was at fault.

Adjusters don’t give the exact formula that they use, but in general, they multiply the total amount of economic damages by a number between 1.5 and 5, depending on the severity of your pain and suffering. If an accident resulted in wrongful death, then the multiplier could be as high as 10 in some cases. When you schedule your free consultation with us in Gwinnett county, we can review your case and help you get a better understanding of how your pain and suffering damages will be calculated into your settlement amount.

Most attorneys work on a contingency fee basis. This means that victims do not pay their personal injury attorney unless they recover damages in their Gwinnett County personal injury claim. If we get the outcome you want, you will pay our firm the agreed-upon percentage of your settlement amount. There are fees associated with filing your claim in court that your attorney fronts for the plaintiff. There is also a lot of money spent on resources building your case, such as hiring experts who may be engineers, accident reconstructionists, medical professionals, or even accountants who can testify on your behalf regarding your lost wages.

There are legal fees that come with filing a claim in court and fighting it in Gwinnett County. Usually, when a plaintiff is not successful in court, they will not have to pay. But if the plaintiff wins or recovers damages, they will have to pay their attorney the fees at the agreed-upon rate.

Many people ask personal injury attorneys how long it will take to resolve their case, and an experienced attorney has a general idea based on previous clients they have helped. Typically the cases will last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, and more rarely, they will last years. You should be alarmed if an attorney makes promises based on prior clients. Even though your case might be similar to another that they have taken to trial, each case is unique, and the different circumstances can lead to varying outcomes.

There are two types of compensatory damages that you can file for in a Gwinnett County personal injury case. Economic damages stem from the losses that you had as a result of the accident. These can include medical bills, lost wages, and property damage. If you were injured in a car accident, you could use the medical bills as evidence when you file your personal injury claim. Non-economic damages include those that aren’t tangible, such as pain and suffering, trauma, loss of enjoyment of life, and emotional distress. These take longer to be quantified, but your attorney will ensure that they are.

There may be times where you are not required to attend court, deposition, or other meetings. Some lawyers want their clients to be very involved in their case, and some clients prefer to have their lawyer take over completely. At The Pendergrass Law Firm, we try to develop a relationship with our clients based on confidence and trust. We will let you know what your responsibilities are, and you can let us know how going through this is affecting you. We care about you and want to help you as best as possible. We highly recommend that you bring all documents related to your Gwinnett County personal injury case to your initial consultation at The Pendergrass Law Firm. Additionally, every time you receive anything in the mail, such as new medical bills or letters from the insurance company, get them to your attorney immediately.

If your attorney recovers damages, then they will take a percentage of that award. This is why it is so important to ask about the firm’s successes before hiring an attorney. Attorney fees for personal injury claims may be anywhere between 33% and 40% of the amount awarded by the judge or jury.

There is no way to find out exactly how much you will be awarded in financial compensation. However, there is a general guideline for how much some victims receive in monetary compensation, and it’s based on the total tangible losses multiplied by a number that corresponds with the severity of the injuries and the accident. Adjusters will typically sum up all of your tangible losses or economic damages to get to a settlement amount and then multiply between 1.5 and 5, depending on the severity of your accident. For a less severe accident, the multiplier may be as low as 1.5, and for a much more severe accident, the multiplier could be as high as five. In the case of wrongful death, the multiplier could even be as high as 10. An example would illustrate this better. Let’s say that a man is injured in Gwinnett County after he was struck by another driver in a sideswipe accident. The accident caused multiple cuts, lacerations, broken bones, and he also needed surgery on his abdomen. Thankfully his injuries are not life-threatening, and he will fully recover, but the surgery and the hospital stay totaled $10,000. Because of the severity of his accident, his multiplier may be between three or four, which would mean that his award would be between $30,000 and $40,000.