In short: Yes. After being involved in a traumatic truck crash, the last thing you’ll want to be doing is trying to keep up with the fast-paced, grueling nature of a collision claim. That’s why hiring a truck crash attorney is a very wise move and a big step in the right direction to receiving what you deserve out of your case. This post will outline what your attorney will do and why it’s worth hiring one.
What Will My Truck Crash Attorney Do?
There are various roles that your attorney will carry out over the course of your claim:
Obtain All Relevant Information
Immediately after your incident, your truck crash attorney will get to work on gathering any witness statements, photos, and official police reports. This will help establish the liability of the collision and how the accident happened.
Seek Medical Information
After you’ve been fully cleared by your doctor, they will gather together medical reports, records, bills, and employment records. This process of the claim is to document each stage of your damages and to fully work out the total costs that the crash has incurred. Please be aware that this stage can take some time.
Receive and Review Insurance Company Offer
After posing all the relevant documents to the liable insurance company, they will receive an offer through that discloses your compensation amount. When they pass this on to you, your attorney will advise whether they feel you should accept or dispute the offer.
Take Further Action
If your truck crash attorney is unable to reach an agreement on a fair offer for your claim, they will take further action. This is usually in the form of filing lawsuits or demanding arbitration. The defendants then have 30 days to respond to the lawsuit file.
Deeper Information
After the defendants have responded with their side of the proceedings, “discovery” research gets underway. This may include contacting witnesses, depositions of parties, and consulting experts. Your lawyer will assist you every step of the way and may even commence their own discovery research to strengthen your claim. Once the discovery phase is over, a trial date should be set.
The Benefits of Hiring a Truck Crash Attorney
Multiple Parties Could be Held Liable
A truck collision is a completely different type of accident from your everyday car crash. In a car crash, it’s usually one of the two drivers who are held responsible for the accident. But in a truck crash, the liability can be held by either the driver, the trucking company, the truck manufacturer, the contractor, or even government entities.
As you can see, that’s a lot of parties to be expected to keep on top of yourself. If you overlook just one of the relevant parties, the statute of limitations (three years in Mississippi) could expire and take away your chance of maximum compensation.
An experienced truck crash attorney will know how to determine all of the liable parties as soon as possible after the accident. This saves you the hassle of firstly, finding out the various parties and secondly, having ongoing negotiations with up to six other parties.
Negotiating compensation can prove tricky at the best of times without adding several different parties into the mix.
Specific Rules and Regulations of the Trucking Industry
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration outlines a strict set of rules and regulations for trucking companies to follow regarding a variety of factors, including weight and hours on the road.
As a driver, you’re not likely to be aware of everything included in these requirements so it’s important that you have someone on your side that does. Your attorney will know how to determine if any of these regulations were violated in your accident. This could be the crucial evidence that you need to assign liability to the truck driver and other parties.
The Appropriate Legal Strategy
Some truck crash cases go all the way to trial and end up being resolved in court. Whereas, others can be negotiated with the insurance companies or later resolved through mediation or arbitration.
An experienced attorney will provide you with the best advice on which route to go down when settling your case. Otherwise, you could end up choosing to pursue your claim in the totally wrong way and end up with a considerably less amount of compensation than you deserve.
It’s not just your strategy that your attorney will provide you with the best advice on either. Throughout the process, they will basically be your voice of reason. That way, you don’t miss out on any vital information that could strengthen your claim or on the contrary, disclose any false information that could put your case in jeopardy.
Seek the Best Representation
As you’ve just read, it’s definitely not worth trying to defend yourself after a truck collision. It’s too easy to miss out on little points that could blow your case out of the water and leave you with barely any compensation. At Coxwell & Associates, we’ve been representing Mississippians for over 35 years. We have put together a free guide that will help you begin your claim.
Disclaimer: This blog is intended for general information purposes only, and is not a substitute for legal advice. Anyone with a legal problem should consult a lawyer immediately.