Should You Hire a Car Accident Attorney?

There’s been a car accident. You suffered injuries or lost a loved one. Suddenly, your life is in disarray. You miss work or school. You (or your loved one) need medical care. You have to contend with physical and emotional pain. Unpaid bills start piling up. A friend or family member says to you: “Maybe you should hire an attorney.” Should you?

In a word: YES.

Car accident attorneys work day-in, day-out to help people like you recover from a motor vehicle collision that interrupts your life. Their job is to help you obtain compensation from anyone whose carelessness or recklessness left you hurting. Here are a few of the reasons why you should hire an experienced San Jose-area car accident attorney today.

An Attorney Works for You and You Alone

Some people doubt they need to hire an attorney. They figure that since the other driver in an accident had insurance, and since they received a call from that insurance company’s adjuster, they can handle negotiating a settlement on their own.

That’s a big mistake.

Insurance companies don’t represent your interests. They represent the interests of their policy-holder (sort of), and their own bottom line (always). When the “other driver’s” insurance company offers you a settlement after a car accident, it’s a sure sign the insurance company knows its policyholder has legal liability to you for your injuries. The insurance company hopes you will negotiate with them directly, and not involve a lawyer, because that way they can take advantage of your vulnerability and relative lack of knowledge about the law and how much your claim might be “worth.”

They can’t get away with those tricks when you have an attorney on your side. An experienced car accident attorney works for your interests and no one else’s, and has negotiated just about as many settlements as the insurance adjuster has. By hiring a car accident attorney, you level the playing field between yourself and the insurance companies, which is often the only way you are going to get them to pay you what you deserve.

An Attorney Knows How to Find out Who Owes You Money, and Who Can Pay It

Not every car accident is the fault of the “other driver,” or at least not entirely that driver’s fault. Lots of accidents have multiple causes. Multiple causes mean multiple parties who might owe you money for your injuries. But, how do you identify those causes? And, how do you figure out whose fault they are? And, how do you find out if those people or companies who are at fault have the resources or insurance to actually pay you?

Those might sound like unanswerable questions, but rest assured, they’re the types of issues experienced car accident attorneys confront and overcome every day. A legal team like ours at Bohn & Fletcher knows all about how to investigate a car accident to identify the tell-tale signs of who might have liability. You’d be surprised by what we find sometimes. Yes, many accidents involve some fault by the other driver, but on occasion car or car-part manufacturers bear some of the blame, as do local road agencies, restaurants and bars, and even medical professionals.

Hiring an experienced car accident attorney gives you the best possible chance of identifying all of those parties whose bad decisions or carelessness resulted in harm to you. But, that’s not all. Attorneys also know how to dig in to figure out which of those parties carry insurance or have the assets to pay you what you deserve. No one wants to spend time and effort chasing someone who has legal liability to you, but doesn’t have any money to pay. An attorney can also help you pursue your own insurance company for compensation if, for example, you carry uninsured motorist coverage.

An Attorney Understands How to Prove What You’re Owed

It’s one thing to figure out a car accident was someone else’s fault. It’s another thing altogether to prove that’s the case in a court of law. An experienced car accident attorney doesn’t just know how to investigate your accident. Good attorneys also have the resources and experience to lay out the facts and make a compelling argument for why a judge or jury must award you maximum damages.

That’s not to say that you signing up for a huge long trial when you hire a car accident attorney. Just the opposite; most car accident matters we handle at Bohn & Fletcher (and most car accident cases generally) end up settling long before they see the inside of a courtroom. We’re very good negotiators and take pride in recovering large settlements for our clients. One way we do that, though, is by having credibility with opposing attorneys and insurance adjusters as top-notch trial lawyers. They know when we represent a person injured in a car accident, we’re always really and able to take a case to court and win if they don’t come up with a fair settlement offer.

How do we go about proving your case in a courtroom, if it comes to that? We work tirelessly to understand the ins-and-outs of every facet of your car accident and your injury. We pay attention to the small details that mean big money from juries, and big headaches for the other side. We work with experts in various fields, especially medicine, accident reconstruction, and finance, to come up with ways to explain to a jury exactly how the accident happened, how you sustained your injury, what resources you need to make your best recover, and how much that will cost. And, we prepare, prepare, prepare, so that when we set foot in a courtroom on your behalf, nothing takes us by surprise.

An Attorney Makes Life Easier for You During a Difficult Time

As experienced, successful personal injury attorneys, we are proud of our profession and the role we play in it. Our work serves one of the most essential functions in American society: we make it possible for people to settle their differences and right their wrongs in a fair, neutral, equal setting. And, we give voices to the “little guy” who deserves legal representation that’s just as good, if not better, than the expensive lawyers hired by insurance companies and big corporations.

But, as proud as we are, we’re aware others don’t always think of attorneys as helpful. So, we’re here to tell you that when it comes to dealing with life after a car accident, an attorney can be a huge help to you personally.

Protecting yourself against the slings and arrows of life after a car accident can take time and effort. It’s precisely the kind of time and effort you don’t have the resources or energy to commit while recovering from a car accident. After all, just because you have a car accident injury doesn’t mean life stops happening. You still have mouths to feed, or classes to go to, or a job to do as best you can.

At Bohn & Fletcher, we make it our job to deal, on your behalf, with many of the added life complications you’re feeling. Don’t want to have to keep responding to requests from insurance companies for information? We handle that. Don’t have the time to track down medical records and police reports from the accident? We’re on it. Don’t know where to find the person who witnessed what happened? We’ll figure it out.

An Attorney Doesn’t Cost You Money You Don’t Have

People also sometimes worry that hiring an attorney after a car accident is going to cost them an arm-and-a-leg. We can put your mind at ease about that, too. At Bohn & Fletcher, we represent most of our car accident clients on a “contingent fee” basis. What that generally means is: we only get paid if you get paid as a result of the work we do. Depending on your circumstances, we may also be willing and able to advance the costs of proving the other party’s liability to you. So, don’t avoid hiring a car accident attorney because you’re afraid of the cost. Come speak with us. Even the initial consultation with our team is free and comes with no strings attached.

Hire a San Jose Car Accident Attorney From Bohn & Fletcher

The dedicated legal professionals at Bohn & Fletcher have spent decades fighting for the rights of Californians injured in car accidents and other personal tragedies. We take our mission as advocates for the injured seriously. Having represented hundreds and hundreds of motor vehicle accident clients, we know what you’re going through and we want to help.

If you have sustained an injury in a San Jose-area car accident, or have a loved one who has been seriously hurt or who has died, we encourage you to hire a lawyer as soon as possible. Contact the experienced, compassionate, hard-working attorneys at Bohn & Fletcher today online or at (408) 279-4222. A consultation with our team is always free, confidential, and comes with no obligation.