Millions of unintentional accidents and injuries occur every year in the United States.
The months following an accident can be a time of great fragility and uncertainty. Depending on the extent of the injuries you’ve sustained, you might be uncertain about how and when your life will get back on track. You might need to look within your local area to find the help that you really need.
Hiring a personal injury attorney in Austin can help to provide guidance, comfort, and stability during this rather difficult time. An Austin personal injury attorney can help ensure you get the compensation that you have a right to, while making sure you understand your case each step of the way.
How can you make sure that you’re making the right hire? There are certain questions you can ask your attorney to make sure that they are the right fit for your case.
What Is Your Area of Focus?
Attorneys handle a lot of different kinds of cases. Personal injury attorneys, in particular, may handle a wide variety of personal injury cases. Everything from slip and falls to auto accidents might be on the table.
When sitting down with an attorney, it’s best to ask if they specialize in any certain type of case. Ideally, your attorney has an extensive background in the type of case that you’re looking to have them handle.
If the attorney you’re talking to has a background in personal injury but has never handled auto accident cases, for example, they might not be the best hire for your case if that is the kind of help you are looking for.
An attorney who has handled auto accident cases dozens and dozens of times in the past is going to be much more well equipped to bring your own case to the kind of conclusion you’re seeking.
They’ll have come up against the obstacles you’re going to face many times in the past and will know the right paths to take and strategies to employ.
It’s for this reason that it is well worth asking about your attorney’s area of focus before hiring them to handle your case.
What Compensation Could I Get?
Another important reason to bring an attorney on for your case? You might not be able to determine the value of your case alone. While some aspects of a personal injury compensation package might seem obvious, many others are not.
For example, how does one add a quantitative amount to the pain and suffering one has experienced as a result of an accident? There are no hard numbers to look at like there would be with medical bills or lost wages.
This is where an attorney’s experience comes in handy. Thanks to all they’ve seen while in practice during their career, they’ll be able to look at your case and identify its worth with relative ease.
They’ll base this off the hard evidence of many cases like yours that have come before. You deserve to be made whole after something as shocking as an accident, so getting a straight answer from your prospective attorney can be helpful as you start down the long road of your case.
Remember to provide as many details as possible for your attorney when helping them reach this number. If they give you a number off the bat without hearing about your case, it may be an indication that they are not doing their job properly.
How Do You Charge?
Different attorneys use different payment processes. Some charge by the hour, some charge a flat fee per session, and others may not charge at all, instead taking their payment out of your winning compensation package.
There’s no right answer when it comes to the way that your attorney should consider charging. However, it is important that you take the time to understand how you’re going to be charged before bringing anyone onto your case.
The last thing you’d want is to be surprised when your first bill comes in. If you’re like many modern families, finances may be tight, and failure to understand payments ahead of time can lead to trouble.
Asking your attorney upfront about their preferred payment plan can help to clear up any questions and ensure you’ll know what is expected from you.
The attorney in question, after looking at your case, might even have suggestions for how best to structure their own payment in relation to your case’s timeline.
Any good personal injury attorney in Austin is going to want the best for their client, and they should take the time to help ensure that their payment isn’t going to cause too many issues in your post-accident life.
How Long Will My Case Take?
One element of a car accident case that is typically surprising to the average person? The length of the case.
Many people assume that their personal injury case will be resolved within a few weeks of the accident, but this is almost never the case.
While the actual length of your case will vary depending on a wide number of factors, it’s best to try and get a true sense of the timeline ahead of you by talking to your attorney.
Your attorney, using the experience and know-how they’ve gained from cases in the past, should be able to give you a proper estimate. They can look at the details of your case and reason how long it should take for things to resolve, giving you a better sense of expectation.
Hiring a Personal Injury Attorney in Austin
Need help bringing a personal injury attorney in Austin onto your case? The above information can help make clear what questions you’ll want to ask your would-be hire before officially bringing them on.
Need immediate legal assistance? Give us a call anytime for a free consultation.
