If you are injured in Florida and you need the services of an attorney, it will cost you absolutely nothing to hire that attorney. If you go to talk to an attorney about a personal injury case and they want any type of money upfront or any type of costs paid, leave that office immediately. Florida allows victims of accidents to contract with attorneys on a contingency fee basis. What that means is that there’s no attorney’s fees due or no cost due unless/until that attorney makes a recovery for you.

The first thing that you should do if you’re injured and you think you might have a case, is call an attorney and make an appointment to sit down and talk with that attorney. The attorney will then talk to you about the facts of your case, and there’s many things that we have to determine. The first thing is liability. Who’s fault was it that you got injured? If it appears that there’s somebody else at fault besides yourself, we move to the next step. Are you injured, and if you were injured, were those injuries caused by this particular incident? Based upon those different elements, we decide if you have a case. Then we might take the case on and investigate it further. If we find out that the person responsible does not have any insurance or does not have any assets, there may be no case because there’s just nothing to recover. So, the first thing that you need to do when you think you may have a case is go and talk with an attorney and tell them about the facts of your case and then you can determine how to proceed from there.

Finding a personal injury lawyer is not hard. If you turn on the radio, walk down the street, you’re gonna see signs and advertisements for personal injury lawyers all over the place, but what you really want to find is a personal injury lawyer that’s best for you. One that is experienced in your type of case, one that will meet with you personally, will return your calls, will talk with you, will learn your story, and deal with you compassionately so that they can then convey your claim to the insurance companies or a jury and it would be in the best interest of you so that’s what you need to do. Not just go call the number from a billboard.

If you’re partially to blame for your injuries caused by another person, that does not mean you don’t have a case. That does not bar your claim. You can still bring a case. What the issue is, is comparative negligence. What part of the negligence were you responsible for? Before filing a suit and negotiating with the insurance company, the attorney in the insurance company, they will generally argue about how much fault is, that you’re responsible for. And then your award would be reduced by that amount. If it goes to trial, the jury is going to actually be asked that question; what percentage of fault is it to my client, and what percentage of fault is it to the at-fault party, the defendant? In the end, when they award a verdict, your verdict would be reduced by your amount of comparative negligence.

If you bring a personal injury case in Florida, you can seek many different types of damages and this depends upon what your injuries were. For instance, you can make a claim for your medical expenses that you’ve incurred in the past, any medical expenses you may need in the future that are related to this incident. You may also make a claim for your lost wages in the past or your lost ability to earn income in the future. You may also make a claim if you’re permanently damaged, permanently injured for pain, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life and those types of non-economic damages. And again, if you have a spouse, that spouse can make a claim for loss of consortium, for anything that they were inconvenienced by when you were injured, whether it be services or tasks that you usually do around the house. So, there are many different claims that you can make and so you need to talk to an attorney to find out what’s best in your case.

A personal injury case arises when somebody has been injured as a result of the negligence of another person. So what you need to have is a duty of care. When we drive cars down the street we owe a duty of care to each other. Not to hurt each other or run into each other. When that is breached you have damages, then you have a claim. So a personal injury claim has to do with being injured, because the negligence of another.

In personal injury lawsuits in Florida, you should not be required to pay any fees or costs unless a recovery is made. Now, what type of fees are there? There are obviously the attorney’s fees. And then you may need expert witnesses, and they charge expert witness fees. There could be fees for accident reconstruction, for videotapes of depositions, so there’s lots of different fees. But the attorney will put up the costs and any fees in the beginning of the case. And you will not have to pay back that attorney unless and until he makes a recovery for you.

If you have a personal injury claim and you want speak with an attorney about it, you should have a free consultation. If an attorney wants to charge you money to talk to you about your personal injury claim, you should not go to that attorney. In Florida, they allow victims of crimes or accidents to hire attorneys on a contingency fee basis, which means you should have to pay no attorney’s fees or costs unless, until they make a recovery for you.