Choosing an experienced and highly-skilled personal injury attorney is essential to winning maximum compensation in your case, but you may be surprised to learn how much you can affect your attorney’s ability to help you. What you do and don’t do after an accident or injury can seriously harm or destroy your case, even with the best attorney on your side. Here are some of the basics of what your attorney needs from you.
Honesty
Even if you think you were partly responsible for your injuries or that something in your past could work against you, you have to be completely honest with your personal injury attorney. Your attorney can only help you if he knows the whole truth. Anything you leave out or try to hide will come back to haunt you. Getting all the facts out in the open right away gives your attorney the chance to deal with any potential problems with your case. If you hope no one will find out and wait until the other side discovers and reveals details that could hurt your case, and they always do, it will be too late for your attorney to get ahead of the problem. It can mean instant death for your case.
Evidence and Records You Collect at the Scene and After the Accident
If at all possible you should collect evidence at the scene of the accident. Take pictures of everything. If it is a motor vehicle accident take pictures of all the vehicles, all damage, all injuries, the other drivers, witnesses, and anything that may have caused the accident as well as evidence such as skid marks.
Get names and contact information for all witnesses. Get the names and badge numbers of any law enforcement officers who arrive on the scene and the names of EMTs.
Keep all of your receipts from the day of the accident, whether they are related to your accident or not, in case the insurance company or someone else tries to make false claims about the series of events that led up to your accident. Keep all receipts and bills related to your accident and injuries.
Getting Started as Soon as Possible
The statute of limitations may give you several months or several years to file a lawsuit, but waiting until the last minute to contact an attorney is not good for your case. Your attorney will need to collect evidence as soon as possible after your accident. Evidence can be lost or destroyed over time. Witnesses’ memories fade, or they move away and can no longer be located. Video is erased or destroyed. Documents and records are lost or no longer kept.
Follow Through and Keep Quiet
Go to all of your doctor’s appointments and follow doctors’ orders. Do not talk to the other insurance company. Do not go out dancing, clean your gutters, or do anything your injuries should not allow you to do. The other side will be watching and trying to get pictures or video to dispute your injuries. Do not post about your accident online. It will be used against you.
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