You’ve been injured, and you need money to pay the medical bills and your regular bills too. You need to know if a personal injury lawsuit can yield enough to be worth your while or if it’s just going to be a distraction from getting better and getting on with your life. What types of costs and losses will it cover, and how far will the money go? Is it going to cost money just to give it a shot?
Hiring a Personal Injury Lawyer When You’re Already in the Hole
We’ll start with the question that stops most people before they even bother to ask. What’s it going to cost to hire a lawyer?
It won’t cost you anything to come in and see if your case is worth pursuing. At McPhillips Fitzgerald & Cullum, LLP, your initial consultation is free of charge. Then, if you choose to move forward with us and we accept your personal injury case, we will represent you on a contingency fee basis. That means we do not ask you to pay anything up-front and we only get paid if you get paid. There are no attorneys’ fees unless you win money. If you do, our fee is a set percentage of your monetary recovery, rather than an hourly rate.
Demanding Enough Money to Pay for the Lifetime Costs of Your Injuries
Most injury victims and their families vastly underestimate the long-term costs of their injuries. Serious injuries can have lifetime costs in the millions. What goes into these costs? The initial medical care is only a small portion. Permanent injuries can mean a lifetime of medical care, and over time you may need medical treatment that is more extensive and expensive due to secondary conditions.
You may have an ongoing need for medical supplies and equipment. You may have to hire someone to care for you in your home and hire some else to do the basic things you used to do, such as cooking, cleaning, home maintenance, shopping, your basic home accounting and bill-paying tasks, and/or providing transportation for children and other dependents. Depending on the nature of your injuries, these needs may be immediate and short-term, or they may develop over time.
You only get one chance to demand the full amount of money you will need for the rest of your life. Our experienced personal injury attorneys work with medical experts, economists and other experts to determine how much money we must demand on your behalf and to prove that you really need that much.
Getting Paid for Your Expenses and Lost Income
Economic damages are your existing and future costs and losses created by your injury. These are the losses that can be directly tied to a dollar amount, such as:
- Existing and future medical expenses, including travel required for medical treatment
- Rehabilitation and therapy
- Medication and medical supplies
- Medical equipment
- Special equipment and home modifications to accommodate disability
- Transportation needs such as a wheelchair van or another type of adaptive vehicle
- Prosthetics
- Home health care
- Custodial care
- End-of-life care
- Non-medical household services
- Existing and future lost income
- Lost earning capacity
Getting Paid for Your Suffering and the Things You May Never Be Able to Do Again
Your pain and suffering as well as missing out on the things in life you used to enjoy or would have enjoyed in the future all have value too. Through a personal injury lawsuit, you may be able to recover compensation for non-economic damages such as:
- Physical pain and suffering
- Mental anguish
- Diminished quality of life
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Disability
- Disfigurement
- Loss of consorting – for your spouse
To schedule your free consultation and learn more, please call or contact us today.