Guide to Finding Connecticut Personal Injury Lawyer

Personal injuries happen every day across the state of Connecticut. Some are more painful than others, and only a fraction of them are caused by the negligence of another party. In the event of such negligence, the Connecticut Courts are available for you to reclaim your violated rights and to demand compensation for your medical expenses and your pain. Throughout that battle, Connecticut personal injury lawyers are available for legal assistance.

Types of Personal Injuries

There are many different types of personal injuries that a person can suffer, and many different types of Connecticut personal injury lawyers available to help accident victims to get compensation in court. You should make sure that your Connecticut personal injury lawyer is familiar with cases similar to yours and can bring suitably relevant litigative experiences to the table.

Here are a few types of injuries. Recognize if yours falls into one of these categories and then search for a Connecticut personal injury lawyer who understands them.

• Drug injury—Every year, Americans are ingesting more and more pharmaceuticals. Most of these are beneficial, but occasionally consumers suffer injuries from their medicines, even if they’re taking them entirely properly. Negligent drug injuries are either caused by producers who didn’t suitably test their products or by service professionals (doctors and pharmacists) who failed to properly prescribe them. In either case, a CT personal injury lawyer can help you find justice.

• Motor Vehicle Accident—Whether you drive a car, a motorcycle, or a truck, whether you are insured or uninsured, you deserve to drive safely without being injured by a negligent driver. CT personal injury lawyers help drivers to get compensation for injuries incurred from accidents caused by drivers who weren’t following the rules of the road.

• Workers’ Compensation—Often times Workers’ Compensation cases seem open-and-shut but can really be much more complicated because of how difficult businesses or insurance companies find it to honor their promises to their employees in their times of need. CT personal injury lawyers work with clients to insure that the clients receive every dollar they’ve earned.

• Slip and Falls—Business and home owners are required by law to keep their properties safe. Any individual harmed because of an improperly maintained floor or utility deserves to seek compensation with the assistance of a good CT personal injury lawyer.

Statute of Limitations

Please remember when you are considering whether to hire a Connecticut personal injury lawyer that the state of Connecticut has in place a statute of limitations. This limits the period of time during which you or your Connecticut injury lawyer will be able to file a complaint. In general, personal injury claims in Connecticut are subject to a two year statute of limitations, with the period beginning when the injury occurred. However, in cases of injury to personal property, the statute of limitations is still two years but only begins to run out when the injury is discovered, not when it first occurred. Call a Connecticut personal injury lawyer near year to set up an appointment as soon as possible in order to make sure the statute of limitations doesn’t leave you without recourse for justice.

How Will My CT Personal Injury Lawyer Be Paid?

CT personal injury lawyers usually work for contingency fees. That means that they’re not paid until the client is awarded some money in damages, either by a judge or jury in a trial or by the other side’s legal representation in a settlement. Still, some other CT personal injury lawyers may prefer to be paid with other methods, charging flat fees for their services or at an hourly rate. Don’t necessarily discount these CT personal injury lawyers, but research them extra hard and make sure that you can afford such a significant financial commitment.

Even with lawyers working on a contingency plans, clients may still run into other fees during the legal process. The most common one is what are called retainer fees, which may be charged to you by a CT personal injury lawyer at the outset of services. CT personal injury lawyers who charge you for a retainer take on less risk by having you as a client, and they may take less of an eventual damages award because of this.

Other fees that you might run into include paralegal fees, research or researcher fees, document drafting fees, and referral fees. At no point should any of these come as a surprise to you, since a CT personal injury lawyer should tell you about all of the fees they will charge you before they begin to work on your case.

You should also know that the State of Connecticut strictly limits the amount of money that a CT personal injury lawyer working on a contingency plan may take from your cash award. Those limits are 33 1/3% for the first $300,000, 25% of the next $300,000, 20% for the next $300,000, 15% for the next $300,000 and finally 10% for all greater amounts. In some select cases, the judge may rule to ignore these limits and give the CT personal injury lawyer a greater percentage, put even in such cases the amount that can be taken is limited 1/3 of the damages award.

What If I Am Unhappy with My CT Personal Injury Lawyer?

People are bound to wind up in disagreements with one another, even those whose relationships are of a professional client-attorney basis, as yours with your Connecticut personal injury lawyer should be. Most disagreements should be solved with some calm discussion from both sides, but for whatever reason this sometimes proves to be impossible. If such is the case with you and your Connecticut personal injury lawyer, there are some opportunities available to set things right.

If your dispute with your Connecticut personal injury lawyer concerns their fees, then the Connecticut State Bar offers a service which may be of interest to you, the Fee Dispute Resolution program. In it, clients talk with their Connecticut personal injury lawyers and try to reach a satisfactory compromise, all under supervision from a trained mediation professional.

Sometimes disputes are of a more serious nature, concerning a lawyer’s ethics. If you believe that your Connecticut personal injury lawyer has lied to you or has been repeatedly negligent in their handling of your legal matters, for instance, then you should immediately reach the Office of Chief Disciplinary Council at the State of Connecticut’s Judicial Branch.