Hiring a Manassas Personal Injury Lawyer

When someone has been injured due to someone else’s negligence in Manassas, Virginia, hiring a personal injury lawyer is rarely a wrong choice. Having someone with first-hand experience and knowledge handling these cases guiding you through the process will make it much easier. For more information, call our firm’s Manassas personal injury practice today to schedule a free consultation.

Finding the Best Lawyer For You

There are many resources available to investigate personal injury attorneys. The prevalence of the internet has made it very easy to conduct research on different options. You’ll want to read about the attorneys, contact their offices and set up consultations.

A vast majority of personal injury firms conduct their initial consultations and interviews at no cost. You should be wary if a personal injury firm wants an hourly consultation fee simply to talk to you about your case. This is very rare.

In essence, you want to have conversations with potential Manassas personal injury attorneys in order to get to know them. You want to know their likely approach to your case, their knowledge base and their expectations for trying the case. These things can help you to get a better understanding about who you are dealing with and whether or not an attorney’s personality, experience and area of practice will be the right fit for you.

How a Manassas Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help

In personal injury cases, attorneys are assets at every point throughout the personal injury claim process, but there are certain steps where their importance truly cannot be understated.

First, the initial onset of a case is one important milestone, and attorneys are invaluable in dealing with the insurance companies during this phase. Insurance companies will often contact you very soon after an accident to take statements or to get a feel of how the accident occurred. An experienced personal injury attorney in Manassas can deflect these questions and let the insurance companies know that the case is being handled in a professional, competent way.

Gathering Medical Records

Another important milestone is the gathering of medical records during your recovery from any injuries that resulted from your accident. During that time, you want to be able to focus on your treatment rather than worrying about contacting your medical providers to get complete records of your treatment. A Manassas personal injury attorney can take care of this with the help of his or her experienced staff of paralegal assistants.

This leads to the important milestone of maximum medical improvement. Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI) is when you are released from medical care and are deemed to have completed your treatment. This is an important milestone in the personal injury process because it marks the point when it is appropriate to begin formatting claims for submission to the insurance company or the accountable party.

Statute of Limitations

The next milestone is the statute of limitations, which is generally two years in a Virginia personal injury case, but there are some exceptions that your personal injury attorney in Manassas will discuss with you at the time of your consultation. If your case is not resolved or settled by the statute of limitations deadline, you may be barred from making a recovery. Even if your case may be suitable for settlement, if it is not settled by the statute of limitations deadline, you should expect that your case will be filed in the court of local jurisdiction. After the case is filed, there is one year for the case to be served, and that is another important deadline.

The final deadline is the settlement or trial deadline. If a personal injury case is resolved through a settlement, that is certainly a milestone in the case. Alternatively, the other important milestone will be if your case is filed before a judge or a jury.