In the hours after your car accident, stress and confusion can overwhelm your common sense. As you assess your losses and reach out for help, it may be easier to forget what steps you can take to make your recovery easier.
Fortunately, there are only a few specific deadlines you need to meet in the wake of your accident. How you choose to address your losses depends almost entirely on you. If you’re wondering when to call a lawyer after a car accident, rest easy knowing that said decision depends on the means through which you would like to address your circumstances.
What to Do Immediately Following a Car Accident
In the days following a car accident, several parties may contact you to try and ease your recovery. The logistics of your recovery can often feel overwhelming in the face of the immediate stress, but there are still steps you can take after a car accident to make the process simpler.
Cooperate With Law Enforcement
Even if law enforcement took a statement from you at the scene of your accident, officers may contact you again to elaborate on some of the details regarding your case. It is always in your best interest to have a lawyer on site when you speak to law enforcement representatives.
That said, do what you can to cooperate with local law enforcement after your accident. This cooperation can allow law enforcement to more effectively charge a liable party if there’s evidence of criminal behavior at the scene of your accident. Your cooperation can also protect you from undue charges.
Request Information from Medical Professionals
Should you need to go to the hospital after a car accident, make sure you get copies of any information regarding your well-being. This information can later make an appearance in a civil complaint as evidence of the losses you endured.
If you don’t remember to get this data while benefiting from an institution’s care, don’t worry. You can reach out in the weeks that follow and request that the on-site team send you the documents you need. Most institutions allow you to request digital and physical copies of the documents relevant to your care.
Contact Your Insurance Provider
Most insurance providers prefer you to take no more than 24 hours to inform them that you’ve been in a car accident. If you want to benefit from the coverage you pay for, you may have to jump through this and other hoops.
Our team is here to make this process more straightforward. If your insurance provider seems reluctant to offer you compensation to cover your losses, we can read through your contract and fight to have that provider respect your investment.
You Have a Limited Amount of Time to Call a Car Accident Lawyer After a Car Accident
If you want to act in the wake of a car accident, you need to contact an attorney sooner rather than later. Each state has what’s known as a statute of limitations. This statute dictates how much time you have in between the day of your accident and a court-approved deadline to bring your case forward.
Failure to bring a car accident claim forward within the allotted amount of time can see a judge waive your right to compensation without considering the value of your circumstances.
With that in mind, it’s best to contact an attorney within a month of the day your accident takes place. The more time we have before your deadline, the more thorough our research into your circumstances can be.
The Benefits of Calling a Car Accident Lawyer
Working with a car accident lawyer can make contending with your accident-related losses a little less stressful. While our team takes over the investigation into fault in your case, we can also:
Prevent Libel and Intimidation
Unless you’re consistently interacting with law enforcement or legal representatives, anything you say at the scene of an accident can be taken and used against you in court. If the state you’re in operates on an unforgiving understanding of contributory negligence, even a casual apology could lose you your right to legal action in the wake of an accident.
That’s where we come in. If we’re able to get to the scene of your accident in a reasonable amount of time, we can prevent you from saying anything that might limit your right to financial support. We can do much the same throughout the rest of the legal process, even protecting you in the midst of negotiations.
What’s more, we can point out a defendant’s attempts at intimidation and counter them in court. With us on your side, you won’t have to worry about retaliation or other means through which a defendant may attempt to threaten your right to financial support.
Request Compensation on Your Terms
Personal injury claims make it easier for you to contend with the bills related to your car accident. They also allow you to control how you go about securing that financial support. Once you submit your claim for approval, you wait for a court to give you the right to summon a liable party.
You can then summon the applicable party to either negotiations or a court trial. These options give you some control over how long your case may take and through what means you secure your support.
Contacting a Car Accident Lawyer Protects Your Right to Legal Action
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed in the wake of a car accident. After you’ve contacted the police and your insurer, though, there’s one more step you should think about taking. Car accident attorneys can help you protect your right to legal action and fight for accident compensation.
When should you call a lawyer after a car accident though? The sooner you reach out, the better. Whether you want to take your case to court or negotiate for a settlement, Morelli Law Firm is prepared to stand beside you. You can request a free case evaluation to learn more about how our attorneys can go to work for you.