As an Orlando personal injury lawyer, people often ask me how long until they need to hire a lawyer after a car accident in Florida.
The shortest answer is that, by law in Florida, you have four years to file a lawsuit for any personal injury (aka “negligence” under the statute), including car and truck accidents.
However, critical evidence often disappears within days or weeks after an accident that caused serious or catastrophic injuries. For mild to moderate injuries, if you do not receive treatment from the best providers within a few days or weeks, you very often can’t maximize your case value.
In other words, while you technically could wait four years to file a lawsuit, you may or may not be able to find a lawyer so long after the accident — because they will not accept a case where they can’t get the evidence they need to win your case.
So the practical answer is that for ALL accidents, you stand the best chance of getting the most money if you try calling a lawyer immediately, or as soon as possible, after your accident. If your injury is mild to moderate, we can give you tips for finding a medical provider who is both an excellent doctor and who has experience in the litigation process (which is essential because they know that they must document all of your injuries, and they are also experienced in testifying, should that need to happen). If your injury is severe or catastrophic, then we need to do all sorts of things VERY QUICKLY to gather evidence regarding the vehicles, and possibly the accident scene, as well as advising you about how to deal with medical providers and the insurance companies.
If you have waited a while, then we decide whether we can help on a case by case basis. Sometimes, if you’ve waited a few months, we can still help as long as you’ve been receiving medical treatment. But, again, how much evidence is lost in the delay really depends on each unique circumstance. If you are wondering whether evidence might have been lost as a result of any delay, just give us a call and we will explain what we would ideally like to have, to prove your case. We regularly accept clients who have waited to hire their lawyer, as long as they have been receiving medical treatment. But, again, especially in the most serious and catastrophic injury cases (or wrongful death cases), we can usually help the most when we are hired right away.
Along those lines, here’s a story about one of our clients who hired a bigger firm before he hired us. Thankfully he called us when he realized they weren’t working on his case. We were still able to collect some critical evidence so that we could prove his case that ultimately settled for 2.75 million. But we were not able to get all of the evidence that we wanted — which meant that number could have been much higher, had he called us immediately.
If you would like to discuss your case, with no obligation, please give us a call or text to 407-803-2139.
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