An abrupt, unexpected personal injury can change your life – dramatically, negatively, and instantly. If you have been injured, and your injury was someone else’s fault, schedule a meeting at once to discuss your injury and your rights with a Long Island personal injury attorney.

When you’ve been injured accidentally, and the accident wasn’t your fault, let a personal injury attorney handle your injury claim and fight for compensation on your behalf while you are healing and recovering your health.

What kinds of injury cases do personal injury attorneys handle? How do you file a personal injury claim on Long Island or in New York City? What compensation may a personal injury victim expect to receive? What will a Long Island personal injury lawyer do on your behalf?

If you’ll keep reading this brief introduction to filing a personal injury claim in New York, you will learn the answers to these questions, and you will also learn more about the rights of the injured victims of negligence in this state.

What Cases Do Personal Injury Lawyers Handle?

A Long Island personal injury lawyer will fight aggressively for the injured victims of negligence in accidents involving but not limited to:

  1.  car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle, and pedestrian accidents
  2.  construction accidents and other on-the-job accidents
  3.  medical malpractice, nursing home neglect, and funeral home neglect

When one of these accidents results in a fatality, it’s a wrongful death. Personal injury attorneys also represent the surviving family members of wrongful death victims, who are also entitled by law to compensation for their loss.

What Are Your Rights As a Victim of Negligence?

Personal injury victims are entitled by law to compensation for their injury-related medical costs, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other damages. However, your compensation after an injury doesn’t automatically appear in your mailbox or your bank account. You may have to fight for it.

On Long Island or in New York City, to recover the full compensation amount that you are entitled to as a personal injury victim, you must be advised and represented by a Long Island personal injury attorney who will fight for your compensation – and for justice – on your behalf.

What Steps Should You Take If An Accident Happens and You’re Injured?

Summon or seek medical assistance at once if you are injured in any kind of accident. If it’s a traffic accident, call the police too, and be sure to obtain the other driver’s contact and auto insurance information. Try to take photos of the accident location and your own visible injuries.

If it’s a traffic accident, take photographs of the damage to the vehicles. If there were witnesses, try to obtain their names and contact details. Your personal injury attorney may need their statements or testimony.

If you are not treated at the scene or taken to a hospital, have a medical exam – within 24 hours if possible – even if you don’t “feel” injured. If you sustain a latent injury, and it isn’t immediately detected, that injury could rapidly – or slowly – become a serious medical condition.

Furthermore, without a prompt medical exam, it may be difficult to link your injury directly to the accident that caused it. An insurance company might dispute your claim and allege that you were actually injured somewhere else and in some other way.

When Should You Contact a New York Personal Injury Lawyer?

Don’t wait. As soon as you’ve been examined and/or treated for a personal injury, contact a personal injury lawyer at once. Your lawyer needs to examine any evidence while it’s still fresh and interview any witnesses while their memories of the accident are still recent.

You also need to line up an attorney at once because you will probably be contacted – within just days of the accident – by the at-fault party’s insurance company, and you’ll need to refer their questions and inquiries to your attorney.

The victims of disabling injuries – spinal cord injuries, brain injuries, and injuries that require an amputation – will need the maximum available amount of compensation. Do not accept a first settlement offer or any settlement offer before you discuss that offer with your attorney.

If you’ve been injured, let your attorney do all of the talking and negotiating with the insurance company. Don’t answer any questions, make any statement, sign any insurance document, or accept any settlement offer. Your attorney will negotiate for a more generous settlement offer.

Will Your Personal Injury Case Go to Trial?

Most personal injury claims in New York are resolved privately when the attorneys for both sides meet in out-of-court negotiations.

However, if your injury claim is disputed, or if no reasonable settlement offer is made, your attorney will take your case to trial and explain to a jury how you were injured and how seriously. Your attorney will then ask the jurors to order the payment of your compensation.

Your New York personal injury lawyer will provide you with sound legal advice and help you make the right legal choices.

How Much Will an Attorney’s Help Cost?

A personal injury can keep you away from your job for weeks and sometimes months. At the same time, your monthly obligations and additional medical bills will be piling up, but you won’t have to worry about paying your attorney to begin the personal injury process.

In fact, you’ll pay no attorney’s fee until your attorney recovers your compensation with a settlement or a trial verdict. Your first consultation with an attorney will cost you nothing and entail no obligation.

That first consultation is your opportunity to learn more about your rights and how the law applies to your case. You’ll get the sound, personalized legal advice that an injured victim of negligence will need.

What Else Should You Know About Filing a Personal Injury Claim in New York?

The statute of limitations for filing a personal injury claim in New York – that is, the deadline – is three years in most cases. As mentioned previously, you should begin the legal process as quickly as possible, before the evidence deteriorates or the witnesses become forgetful.

However, if three or more years have passed since you were injured, speak to a personal injury lawyer to learn if you may qualify to bring an injury claim under one of the very narrow exceptions to the statute of limitations.

If you’ve been injured on Long Island or in New York City by another party’s negligence – and if you and your personal injury lawyer can prove it – you will be compensated, and the law will be on your side.