Car Accidents: When It’s Okay to Represent Yourself in a Claim

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After a car accident, you likely have a legal battle ahead of you. If the accident was minor and the other party was clearly at fault, your case should be simple. You should be able to receive a payment from their insurance company relatively quickly. However, in a major accident where the fault is disputed, the case could be long and drawn out.

In the former situation, you could likely represent yourself and come away with a satisfactory outcome. In the latter scenario, though, you are definitely going to want to hire a competent professional.

Reasons to Represent Yourself

Nobody wants to enter a courtroom aside from lawyers, judges, bailiffs, stenographers, and courtroom artists. In other words, the people paid to be there. The rest of us would be happy never to spend a single day in these buildings.

Speedy Resolution

In an attempt to avoid a day in court, most of us would like to take a settlement offer instead. By not hiring a lawyer, you are likely to dramatically speed along your claim and get paid a lot sooner. This is great when you have medical bills and repair costs that you need to pay. By handling things yourself, you can get your money quick and be done with the whole affair. Then you can put the whole mess behind you.

No Legal Fees

By representing yourself, you also don’t have to fork over a portion of your settlement payment to a lawyer. The money is all yours.

Reasons to Hire a Lawyer

While a quick process that doesn’t involve some of the money you receive going to a third party can sound pretty appealing, it does have some drawbacks. Hiring a lawyer is going to be your better option in most situations.

Convenience

Hiring a lawyer may make the process take longer, but it will still mean less work for you. Hiring an attorney will likely mean that you will have to wait longer until you receive your settlement. However, while you wait, you can focus on other things. A lawyer will take over all communications with the insurance company. They will also take care of filing a lawsuit if a settlement cannot be reached.

A competent auto accident lawyer in Los Angeles will make sure that everything is in order if your case goes to trial. They will continue to fight to get you the money that you deserve. Aside from occasionally consulting with your lawyer over the latest settlement offer, your time will be relatively free from all legal matters until you go to court.

However, in these cases, lawyers do not like entering the courtroom either. Your lawyer would much prefer to settle, and the sooner, the better. They will try to reach an agreeable settlement number with the insurance country so that everyone can move on.

More Money

While you will have to pay your lawyer for their services, the payment should be made on a contingency basis, meaning if they don’t get you money, they don’t get paid. When you do get paid, you will give them a percentage of the payment, based upon state law and the agreement you made with your lawyer upon hiring them.

It can be tough to give a significant percentage of the money you get for your settlement away. However, you can take some comfort in knowing that you likely still ended up on top. Even after lawyers have been paid, most accident victims are left with a larger amount of money than they would have received had they tried to represent themselves.

No Stupid Mistakes

As long as you have hired a competent lawyer with experience in car accident law, you should not have to worry about little mistakes costing you big. The inexperience of someone representing themselves can often lead to costly mistakes. These mistakes could even end up completely negating the claim and result in the claimant receiving nothing.

However, a qualified lawyer will not only be able to avoid these errors themselves but should also be able to prevent you from making them.

When Representing Yourself Is a Terrible Idea

Representing yourself in legal matters is never recommended. However, depending on the outcome you are seeking, it can be okay at times to avoid hiring a lawyer. In some situations, though, representing yourself is simply out of the question. When serious injuries are involved, or there is a dispute over fault, the case will likely get quite contentious.

Insurance companies do not like to pay out claims. The more money that is involved, the harder they are going to fight to avoid paying you. An experienced car accident lawyer knows all of the tricks that the insurance company will use to attempt to trick you into undervaluing your claim or negating the claim altogether. You most likely are not aware of all of these tactics.

Going up against the insurance company in these situations is like David trying to take on Goliath without a slingshot.

If there is a question about who is at fault, you likely won’t be able to mount an effective enough argument on your own. Instead of making a claim against another at-fault driver, you could find a claim being leveled against you.

When Representing Yourself Likely Won’t Hurt You Too Much

In cases where the damages were minor and the other party was clearly at fault, you likely won’t do yourself too big of a disservice by choosing to waive legal representation. When you are seeking a small amount of money, and the other party is clearly to blame, the insurance company will most likely cut you a check immediately rather than haggle over what to them is a negligible loss.

You would still likely receive a higher payment if you got a lawyer involved. However, it wouldn’t be a significant increase. Besides, being able to quickly put the matter behind you and pay the money for repairs to your vehicle is often much more valuable than an extra hundred dollars or two.