A car accident is often seen as the most straightforward kind of legal accident you can end up in, so some people think that there is no need to get a lawyer. In reality, having a law expert on your side can make things much easier: here are some of the reasons why you should not wait to hire one.

Why Would I Need a Lawyer?

A lawyer is a law expert, and that means that they can look into every law that might apply to your accident. For a car accident, it is not always as simple as “the other person rammed into me,” and there can be all kinds of law terms involved depending on what the case actually is.

For example, not every car accident is intentional, and some are caused by a thing that the perpetrator could not control (like damaged brakes). This makes it a very different legal situation since there is another cause to investigate.

On top of that, a lawyer is generally helpful to have during the case. Whether it is negotiating the settlement or working out who to contact about certain issues, a law expert can help you get compensation for your injury.

Can’t I Use Insurance?

One of the biggest reasons that people do not hire a lawyer is because they have insurance, assuming that their insurance policy can cover whatever major injury they have (and any damage to their property). However, this is not always the case, and the two also are not mutually exclusive.

It is perfectly justified to hire a lawyer and use your insurance to cover part of the costs, something that many people already do. Insurance can’t necessarily cover expensive medical bills or support you if you have lost work due to the injury.

There are also cases where your insurance will not payout at all. This can vary based on your policy, but you might end up in a situation where they refuse to pay out most/any of the money, leaving you stuck with no way to cover any damages or bills that you are stuck with.

What Can a Lawyer Do?

Lawyers have a lot of roles within even simple injury cases, and a lot of people misunderstand what they are able to do. They are not just the men and women that represent you in the courtroom – they are legal experts with a good understanding of their relevant fields of law.

Negotiation

Negotiating a good settlement is key to getting proper compensation in a case, and lawyers can do this better than anybody. If you are not a good negotiator, it is possible to make backward progress or accidentally sabotage your own case by making demands that get it thrown out.

Negotiation also matters a lot if you are partially at fault since blame could be assigned to either one of you. Negotiating a lower settlement becomes vital if you are the one paying.

Filing

Filing away the correct information is a major part of any claim, and lawyers generally know exactly how to approach the issue. For people with no law experience or legal certifications, this can become a lot harder because the right details need to be presented in the right way for a case to be valid.

It is also useful to have somebody who can do it quickly since some states only allow so much time to pass before you can’t claim on an injury anymore. Even if you would still have a legal case, being past the limit generally means that you are not getting to claim on it unless it somehow majorly impacts your life again.

Knowing the Laws

Finally, lawyers are simply more experienced in the cases they take on. In a Phoenix, Arizona auto accident, there will be laws that are shared with other states and ones that are not. If you are from out of state or only know the law based on pop culture, you will not know the niche laws that apply there.

This means that, for many people, a lawyer is an essential part of having the case progress in the right way. If you are trying to handle it yourself, you might use laws in the wrong way or refer to things that do not exist in that state, and that can completely ruin your claim.