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How Long Will My Personal Injury Claim Take?
Posted in Personal Injury
When you’re the victim of a personal injury, it’s understandable to want a resolution as soon as possible. After all, no one wants to be tied up in a lawsuit for an extended period of time. As you might have guessed, there are several factors that affect the length of a personal injury claim. Read on to learn about the personal injury claim process.
Maximum Medical Improvement
First things first, your recovery will play a part in how long your claim will take. We typically wait to file a personal injury claim until you are either fully recovered or as recovered as you’re going to get—what we call the point of maximum medical improvement.
We wait because we want to make sure we understand the full extent of the cost of your injuries, the recovery from them, and any continuing problems related to the injury. Once a claim is settled, the case is closed, and that means you can’t go back and ask for more money, even if problems pop up down the road.
Preparing the Submittal Package
The next step in the process is gathering all documents that will affect your claim, such as medical bills and records, documentation of insurance payouts, employer documentation of work missed, etc. This collection of documents is called the Demand Package, and it’s what we use to determine the so-called value of the claim—i.e., how much money to ask for. This process typically takes at least a month or two.
The Negotiation Process
The negotiation process begins when we send the demand package to the defendant. Their review process can typically take another month or two while they do their own research and analyze the information to come up with their own value for the claim, a.k.a. a counter-offer.
We will discuss each offer with you before making a counteroffer in return. If we’re on the same page with the defendant, this process can go relatively quickly. If not, it can stretch out for several weeks, and the length of time spent on negotiations is often directly related to the complexity of the case.
Litigation
If we cannot reach a settlement with the defendant, then the next step is litigation. What this means is that we officially file a lawsuit with the court. And yet, this still does not mean a case will actually go to court. If your case does go to court, the trial can be expected to last anywhere from a day to several weeks.
The majority of the time, the case will be settled out of court before trial. For that reason, we sometimes think of litigation as simply an advanced stage of negotiation.
Find Your Personal Injury Attorney at GroverLawKC
As you can see, there are a number of variables that can determine the length of a personal injury claim. But at GroverLawKC, we will do everything in our power to get you fair compensation as quickly and affordably as possible.
If you’re in need of a personal injury attorney, we can help. Give us a call, or visit our website for more information.