3 Crucial Questions To Ask Before Hiring A Car Accident Attorney
Have you recently been involved in an automobile accident? Is your insurance company trying to blame you for the accident even though someone else actually caused it? It's bad enough to be in an accident without being blamed for something that you didn't do. In order to receive any compensation for your injuries and losses, you're going to need to hire a car accident attorney. But not every attorney is right for every case. Before you hire anyone, here are some questions you should ask in order to be sure that you're getting the best one for you:
What fees can be expected? A car accident attorney doesn't ask for anything up front. Instead, he or she will be paid a percentage of whatever settlement is finally received from the insurance company. But this may not be everything that you'll need to pay. If the attorney hires a private investigator or an expert witness to testify, these fees often come from your percentage of the settlement. Although it can seem frustrating to have your final settlement amount be lowered due to these fees, chances are good that you wouldn't be able to get any settlement at all without them.
Have they handled many cases like this in the past? Not every car accident attorney has the same expertise. Some prefer to handle cases involving motorcycles while others prefer to tackle cases involving ordinary vehicles and semi-trucks or other commercial vehicles. Depending on the exact vehicles involved, there may be more than just the basic traffic laws that need to be considered. The more cases that an attorney has handled in the past that are similar to your current case, the more likely it is that you'll be successful and will be able to receive the sort of settlement that you deserve.
How long will this case take? Nobody can give you an exact figure as to how long a particular case will take, but an experienced car accident attorney should be able to make an educated estimate. This estimate will take into account things like how strong your case is, how long it took him or her to resolve similar cases in the past, and how busy the current court system is. Although you could receive a viable settlement offer within days of hiring an attorney, it's also possible that it could take months or years before your case reaches a conclusion.