How Can a Truck Accident Lawyer Help?

A truck accident lawyer can help a client in several ways, and each of those ways can bring huge benefits to the accident survivor. Your attorney will offer legal services—drafting documents, dealing with insurance companies, negotiating on your behalf, and filing any necessary lawsuit. Your attorney will also provide advice based on years of relevant experience.

Most truck accident victims evaluate their lawyer’s help based on case results. When all is said and done, your attorney will strive to secure compensation covering your medical expenses, pain and suffering, and all other damages resulting from your truck accident.

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Why Do So Many Truck Accident Victims Hire Attorneys?

You may benefit from hiring a truck accident lawyer if:

• You suffered an injury during a truck accident
• Your loved one suffered an injury in a truck accident but cannot hire an attorney for themselves
• Your loved one passed away during or after a truck accident

Every client has their reasons for accepting an attorney’s help. There are some common reasons shared by many clients, though, and they include:

The Unfamiliar Nature of Truck Accidents and Cases

The majority of truck drivers and operators act in a responsible, safety-conscious manner. Truck accidents are relatively rare, and most truck accident victims face an entirely unfamiliar situation. You may be unsure of:

• How to seek fair compensation for your medical bills, lost income, vehicle repairs, and other losses
• Who is truly on your side following the accident, and who (including insurers) may have ulterior agendas
• How to obtain evidence from the accident
• How to negotiate effectively for a fair financial recovery
• How to file or complete a lawsuit if your circumstances require one

When truck accidents do happen, the result is often devastating. You should not have to take time away from the recovery process to deal with insurance companies. Let a lawyer help, and you won’t have to.

The Devastating Toll on Truck Accident Victims’ Health 

Between 2012 and 2022, there was a 49 percent increase in the number of large trucks involved in fatal traffic accidents. These vehicles are disproportionately likely to cause:

• Severe injuries
• Wrongful deaths

Lawyers who represent truck accident victims are often representing clients who are in immense pain, struggling psychologically and emotionally, and even mourning the unexpected loss of a loved one. It’s commendable to ask for help from an attorney during your time of need—help is exactly what a lawyer provides.

Accident Victims’ Extremely Limited Time (and Energy)

Most Americans struggle to find time for even the most pressing responsibilities in their lives. The slightest disruption in your daily routine may cause stress, financial hardship, and other problems.

Truck accident insurance claims can require weeks or months of time and effort from the person handling it. For many accident victims who are focused on recovering and finding normalcy, the time just isn’t there to deal with an insurance claim.

The Financial Relief and Support a Law Firm Provides

The law firm you choose to handle your truck accident case will provide financial support in several ways, including by:

• Ensuring your medical costs and other accident-related expenses are paid while they resolve your case
• Covering filing fees and other administrative costs associated with your case
• Paying any experts they hire to contribute to your claim or lawsuit

Of course, a law firm’s ultimate form of financial support is securing fair compensation for your accident-related damages. While they work to obtain that compensation, they will take care of every other case-related expense for you.

A Lawyer’s Experience and Training

During law school and their time serving clients like you, truck accident lawyers learn:

• Laws related to truck accident claims and lawsuits
• How to recognize when insurance companies are acting in bad faith
• How to negotiate effectively
• How to properly file and resolve truck accident lawsuits
• Deadlines related to truck accident cases
• Everything else you need to know to complete a truck accident case effectively

Experience also teaches lawyers how insurance claims and legal processes work. Those who handle their own truck accident claim can study for hours, but there is no substitute for a lawyer’s real-world experience.

Key steps in the insurance process that your truck accident lawyer will handle are:

Protecting You Throughout the Claims Process

Your truck accident lawyer’s first duty is protecting your interests. Insurance companies are for-profit businesses that—in many cases—prioritize their own financial concerns over treating claimants fairly.

Attorneys are familiar with insurance companies’ questionable tactics, which include:

• Denying the truck accident victim’s claim (often without just reason or explanation)
• Presenting a lowball settlement offer which, without a lawyer, you might be tempted to accept
• Denying specific losses or contesting the value of your losses

Insurance companies may say that you are responsible for the accident or that you are exaggerating the severity of injuries. In truth, these kinds of claims are often thinly veiled excuses for insurance companies to avoid financial losses.

Proving Who Caused the Accident (Also Known as Establishing Fault)

Most states assign financial responsibility for truck accidents based on fault. Your truck accident attorney may prove who caused your accident by:

• Recording your account of how the truck accident happened (and, in your opinion, who caused the accident)
• Speaking with eyewitnesses whose accounts will likely align with yours
• Hiring experts to testify who, in their opinions, caused the truck accident
• Scouring security cameras, traffic cameras, dash cameras, and other video sources that may have captured the collision

Trucking companies often have evidence that a claimant’s lawyer can use. Your lawyer may need to use legal tactics to obtain such evidence, which can include a driver’s history of causing accidents, black-box data from a truck, and other types of evidence.

Documenting Your Losses (and Providing the Documentation to Insurers)

Your lawyer will portray a vivid image of how your truck accident has:

• Caused you pain
• Disrupted your mental and emotional health
• Affected you financially
• Diminished your quality of life

Documentation of your damages will complete the image. Medical records, diagnoses from mental health experts, bills for medical care and vehicle repairs, and other forms of documentation will show the cost of the collision.

Calculating Your Losses and Seeking a Fair Settlement from Insurers

Your truck accident lawyer will create an evidence-backed, mathematically sound calculation of your losses. They will present this calculation to liable insurers and the documentation of your losses.

Your lawyer will give insurance companies every reason to pay you fairly. Yet, it’s possible that insurance providers will do otherwise. If your attorney completes settlement negotiations without receiving a fair offer, you and your legal team may turn your sights to a lawsuit.

A Lawyer Will Also Perform Critical Legal Services if You Choose to Sue

Many trucking companies have the financial means to cover accident victims’ damages. If liable insurers refuse to pay you fairly, suing a trucking company—or other liable parties—may be a viable case strategy.

If you elect to file a lawsuit, your attorney will:

File the Suit Before the Statute of Limitations Expires

States impose deadlines for filing personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits, including truck accident cases.

Once you and your truck accident attorney decide to file a lawsuit, your attorney will:

• Draft the lawsuit in the proper format
• File the lawsuit with the appropriate court
• Ensure that defendants named in the lawsuit are notified of the legal complaint

Attorneys have paralegals and other support staff who play critical roles in the filing process. This is a key reason why lawyers can file their cases so efficiently.

Give Liable Parties the Chance to Settle

Filing a lawsuit takes time, effort, and resources. Therefore, when a trucking company, insurance company, or other liable party learns they’re being sued, they pay attention.

A lawsuit may prompt liable parties to re-engage in settlement talks. Knowing that you and your lawyer are prepared for trial if necessary, liable parties may finally offer the settlement you deserve.

Complete Pre-Trial Proceedings

If your lawyer does not receive a fair settlement offer after filing your lawsuit, they will continue advancing toward trial. Pre-trial proceedings can include:

• Depositions
• Exchange of evidence
• Mediation
• Filing of various motions
• Jury selection

You should let a truck accident lawyer handle these important legal matters.

Fight for You in Court If No Settlement Happens

Most times, truck accident survivors accept settlements from insurers or other liable parties. Sometimes, though, a trial is necessary for truck accident victims to get the justice they deserve.

By deciding to hire a lawyer, you have the option of filing a lawsuit and going to trial if you need to. Your attorney will receive their fee based on your case outcome, so they will be highly motivated to secure fair compensation for you—even if they have to go to trial to do it.

You Pay a Lawyer to Get Results. Here Are Some Damages For Which They Will Seek Compensation.

Though your truck accident lawyer will help in many ways, there will be no misunderstanding about why you hire them. You will hire your lawyer to obtain the entire settlement or jury award for your medical costs, pain and suffering, and other accident-related damages.

You should know what damages you’ve suffered because of your accident. Your lawyer will document those damages in fine detail, and they may include:

• Medical bills, which can result from emergency transportation, hospital services, medical imaging, surgeries, and other medical care related to your truck accident
• Professional losses, which often include lost income and diminished earning capacity
• Pain and suffering, including any physical pain, psychological distress, and emotional anguish resulting from the accident
• Property damage, which includes the cost of repairing or replacing any vehicle damaged during the accident

Tragically, some truck accident victims don’t make it. If you have lost a loved one because of the party that caused a truck accident, your lawyer will evaluate:

The Non-Economic Effects of Losing Your Loved One

The way truck accident victims pass away can be especially devastating for survivors. Sudden losses take loved ones by surprise, causing shock and a type of complicated grief that may last longer than grief from an anticipated passing.

Your attorney will assign an accurate financial value to any grief, depression, loss of spousal support, and other non-economic damages resulting from the wrongful death.

The Financial Effects of Losing Your Loved One

Losing a loved one often costs survivors:

• The services the decedent provided in their household, such as handyman skills, security, financial accounting, and general labor
• Any income the decedent used to support their family and other household members
• Any benefits the decedent provided, such as health insurance and retirement accounts through their employer

While the non-economic effects of losing a loved one often cause the greatest sense of loss, truck accident lawyers account for the full cost of wrongful deaths.

Hire Your Truck Accident Attorney Today

You can be certain that any liable trucking company will have at least one attorney. Shouldn’t you have a lawyer, too? Hiring an attorney is not expensive, so you face no barrier to legal services.

When you hire a truck accident lawyer, you acknowledge the importance of your case. You also decide to give your recovery the attention and time it warrants. Find a proven personal injury lawyer and hire them as soon as possible (preferably today).

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