The Questions
We Get Most.
These are the questions the phone gets most, answered in the order people ask them. Nothing here is advice on your case, and asking costs nothing.
What does it cost to ask a question?
Nothing. The case evaluation is free, it can happen entirely by phone, and if you cannot travel an attorney comes to your home or your hospital room.
Fee arrangements are a conversation with the attorney about your own matter, not a number on a website, and nothing moves until you agree to it.
Start a free case evaluationHow long do I have to bring a claim?
Most injury actions have to be commenced within two years. Commenced means filed, not phoned in and not still being discussed with an adjuster.
Some clocks run differently: a claim against a government unit needs a written notice within six months, and where the injured person was an unemancipated minor the period of minority is not counted.
How the two year deadline worksWhat should I not say to the insurance adjuster?
Nothing recorded, and nothing signed, before you have had advice. Within days of a crash you will hear from your own insurer and from the other driver's, and one of them will ask for a recorded statement or a medical authorization.
Give the facts of what happened, do not speculate about fault or about how badly you are hurt while you are still being treated, and ask for time.
What to do in the first 48 hoursWho pays my medical bills while the claim runs?
Your own auto policy pays first. Many states require every auto policy on a registered vehicle to carry a medical benefit, and the statute sets the order in which policies pay: your own first, then the policy on the vehicle you were in, then the policy on any vehicle involved if you were not in one.
Except for workers compensation, the auto policy is primary, so a health plan sits behind it rather than in front of it.
How no fault and first party benefits workHow long does an injury claim take?
It depends on how badly you were hurt and how long the treatment runs, because nobody can value a claim before they know what the injury turned into. It also depends on whether the other side makes a reasonable offer.
Anybody who gives you a date on the first call is guessing.
What the first weeks look likeDoes limited tort stop me from claiming?
Not from claiming at all. Limited tort keeps the economic side and rules out a claim for noneconomic loss, which the statute defines as pain and suffering and other nonmonetary detriment, unless the injury is a serious injury.
There are exceptions written into the statute, and if the named insured never answered the insurer's notice, full tort is conclusively presumed. Find your declarations page before you assume anything.
Limited tort and full tort, explainedDo I have to go to court?
Most matters resolve without a trial, and a claim proceeds to court when the offers are unreasonable rather than as a first step.
If it does go that way, you are told before it happens and you decide.
What this firm takes onWhat happens on the first phone call?
A person answers, at any hour, in one of sixteen languages if you ask for it. You say what happened, we say what we see, and you decide what happens next.
If you cannot get to either office, we come to you. Nothing is signed on that call.
The sixteen languages spoken hereStill Not Sure Whether To Call?
No cost, no obligationCall and describe it in one sentence. If it is not a case for this office, you will be told that on the phone rather than after a file has been opened.