When you file a personal injury claim, you must make sure to use all possible means you can to get compensated fully. There are crucial things you must do to achieve that. We talked to Tulsa personal injury lawyer and these are the tips we got.
Note that there are aspects of your case you have full control while others you don’t have. You will learn all that in this quick guide.
Let’s get started.
1. Hire the Best Personal Injury Lawyer
There is no shortcut here. You either hire an experienced lawyer and increase the chances of winning the case or hire someone who is still new when it comes to personal injury law and lose the case. What happens when you lose the case? No compensation!
If you have a serious case; whether you were involved in an accident, you were treated badly in the hospital or you used a defective product that caused problems in your health, you should hire the best attorney to handle your case.
The importance of hiring an experienced lawyer cannot be underrated. Having an experienced injury lawyer to represent you can increase the odds of getting full compensation. Note that different lawyers have different skills and levels of experience. Besides, different lawyers are good when it comes to particular cases.
You want a lawyer who is experienced in your particular case and has handled several similar cases and won before.
Here, you need to ask the injury lawyer every possible question to make sure he or she is the right one to hire for your particular case.
Remember to differentiate between a general practitioner and a specific one. A general practitioner is one who handles a variety of cases ranging from real estate, divorce to contracts whereas a specific lawyer is one who deals with specific legal matters.
Well, you could hire a general practitioner and still get full compensation and you could hire a personal injury lawyer and still get better results. But you should make sure you are dealing with an experienced person.
2. Keep the Evidence in a Safe Place
In law, there is what is called “burden of proof”. As a claimant or plaintiff, you need to provide evidence that’s beyond a reasonable doubt to prove your claim at trial.
For that reason, you need to keep the evidence preserved immediately the accident or incident happens. Remember, memories fade over time, witnesses can disappear and physical evidence can get distorted or misplaced.
Here are a few tips to help you preserve evidence to increase the chances of maximizing your potential compensation in your personal injury claim.
- Capture photographs– Were you involved in a car accident? Take photographs of the scene of the accident, the car. Were you treated badly, take photos of the place; leg, hands, or any part of your body.
- Write down every fine detail of the place– Sometimes you may be unfamiliar with the exact place. You can write down the street, town or location
- Write down the contact information of witnesses– These are the people who saw it happen. Make sure you get their contact information.
- Report to the authorities– A car accident? Report to the nearest police station. In a construction site? Report to the land or homeowner.
- Ask for video surveillance evidence– If you did not record anything, you can ask for video surveillance. Check to see whether there are CCTV cameras installed in the place where the accident happened.
Note that the defensive team will start creating a strong defense as soon as the accident happens. For instance, construction site owners will instruct all employees to make sure they are in full safety uniforms and if it happens that you had not worn one, you are at fault already.
3. Keep off Social Media
What you say on social media will be held against you. Therefore, make sure you don’t speak badly on social media after you are involved in an accident.
It’s also worth noting that many have lost serious cases because of using social media the bad way.
As we have said earlier that you should gather evidence immediately an accident happens, sharing that evidence on your social media accounts can make it accessible to people, including the defensive team.
Usually, when they fail to get enough evidence, personal injury lawyers will turn to social media to search for information that will enable them to pin you down in court.
That Facebook post or that Twitter status you shared could be used to deny you full compensation.
So use social media WISELY at that moment.
