Hiring a New Hampshire Injury Attorney
When To Hire a New Hampshire Injury Attorney
Being injured in a motor vehicle collision, hurt at work, a victim of medical negligence, or suffering any other type of personal injury is too often a life changing event. When you are injured as the result of someone else’s negligence, your first priority should be to seek medical treatment and recover as much as possible from your injuries. Making sure you receive the compensation you are entitled to under the law is where an experienced New Hampshire injury attorney comes into play. This article will explore the reasons it is important for you to consider retaining a NH injury attorney to handle your case.
Statute of Limitations
Typically under New Hampshire law, those who have been injured have three years from the date of the injury to file a claim. This is known as a “statute of limitations.” This is a hard-and-fast deadline. Therefore, under the law, you have three years from the date you knew (or should reasonably have known) of your injuries to bring a claim. Otherwise, you are forever barred from seeking monetary compensation for those injuries. Moreover, if a lawsuit is not filed within this three-year time frame, the insurance company will have no incentive to settle your claim. It is, therefore, very important that you contact an experienced New Hampshire injury attorney early on in the process. Your attorney can immediately file a claim with the at-fault driver’s insurance company and can begin settlement negotiations on your behalf and filing your lawsuit if the case cannot be settled.
The Insurance Company is NOT on Your Side
Contrary to their oftentimes catchy advertisements and slogans, insurance companies are not on the side of injured victims. In order to generate business they advertise constantly and make themselves out to be a good neighbor or, with them, you are somehow in good hands. It is important to remember that insurance companies have a financial stake in not compensating you for your injuries. They are, in fact, not on your side. Remember that insurance companies are, first and foremost, businesses. For insurance companies, you – the injured victim – are not the priority, and the insurance company’s aim is not to do the right thing or the fair thing on your behalf. Their strategy is to delay, deny, and defend any claim brought against them. Fighting to ensure that you are fairly compensated for your injuries is the job of the NH injury attorneys at the Law Office of Manning Zimmerman & Oliveira PLLC.
A New Hampshire Injury Attorney Will Review the Facts of Your Case
Unfortunately, many injured victims settle their personal injury case for much less than a fair and just amount. By contacting an experienced New Hampshire injury attorney after you have injured, the attorney will review your medical records and bills, the facts of your case – the how and where your injury happened – in order to determine a settlement value for your case. Your injury lawyer can also advise you whether you are better off accepting a settlement offer or going to trial. Initially insurance companies will offer very little money to settle your claim, leaving your attorney to consider filing a lawsuit in order to encourage the adjuster to fairly evaluate your claim and offer a fair settlement.
Settlement versus Trial
As the injured victim, the decision whether to accept a settlement offer or take your claim to trial is yours to make. Settlement negotiations often go back and forth between the injured victim’s attorney and the insurance adjuster or defense attorney. At this point, the insurance company will make a final offer or an impasse is reached. The experienced NH personal injury attorneys at the Law Office of Manning Zimmerman & Oliveira PLLC, after considering all of the facts and circumstances of your case, will advise whether you should accept an insurance company’s final settlement offer or proceed to trial.
Your New Hampshire injury attorney at the Law Office of Manning Zimmerman & Oliveira PLLC will consider several factors in helping you decide whether or not you should accept a settlement offer, or proceed to trial. These factors include the way in which the lawyer believes you and other witnesses and health care providers may present at trial, the weight of the medical evidence, your medical bills, and the nature and extent of your injuries and their degree of permanency.
Taking a case to trial always involves some degree of uncertainty and requires that you give up control of your case, leaving it up to a jury to decide. Jury members have a duty to decide your case fairly and impartially, but they do not know you and the pain and suffering you have experienced as a result of your injuries.
Contact a New Hampshire Injury Attorney
In some cases, it is preferable to accept a settlement offer rather than face the uncertainty of a trial. Personal injury trials often require expert testimony from both sides, especially from physicians and other health care providers. In addition, you and your lawyer will be preparing for, and sitting through, one or more full days of trial in a courtroom. An experienced New Hampshire injury attorney at the Law Office of Manning Zimmerman & Oliveira PLLC will review the facts and circumstances of your case to help you determine whether or not it’s preferable to settle your case or proceed to trial.
If you or a loved one have been injured through no fault of your own, contact the New Hampshire injury attorneys at the Law Office of Manning Zimmerman & Oliveira PLLC. For a free consultation, call 603-624-7200.
