When You First Call
When you first contact Cueria Law Firm, LLC, New Orleans about a personal injury case, we will ask you a few questions to get an idea of what situation you are in. These include the date of the accident, type of accident, what your injuries are, and what steps you’ve taken so far to resolve your case.
At that point, you will speak with our Personal Injury Attorney New Orleans, who will give you a free consultation on your case. This consultation may take place over the phone or in person at our New Orleans office. He will review the facts of your case and use his 25 years of experience representing injured individuals to give you advice on going forward. In some cases, we may not accept your case. This depends on the details you will discuss. This does not mean you don’t have a claim, just that your claim does not fit the types of cases we specialize in. We are happy to discuss the reasons we didn’t accept your case with you.
If our personal injury lawyer New Orleans believes your case is a good fit for our firm, we will offer you a retainer agreement. This is a contract which says we will be legally representing you during your personal injury claim. Not only will this authorize us to speak to appropriate parties regarding your claim, but it will also mean you cannot accept a settlement or close a case without contacting us first. The retainer will also outline a fee agreement which will be due upon your case settling. We do not require an upfront payment of attorney fees, as we work on a contingent fee basis.
Getting Medical Treatment
The most important thing that an injured person can do to get the best result from their claim is to be regularly treated by a medical professional. This is one thing that our firm cannot do for you, though we can assist you in finding a doctor in New Orleans and setting up appointments.
We work with several local medical providers including chiropractors, neurologists and MRI technicians who allow us to guarantee the costs of your treatment in place of upfront costs. This is one of the many ways we help our clients focus on their recovery, instead of stressing about the immediate effect of their accidents.
Our New Orleans Personal Injury Lawyer will be regularly requesting your medical records and may contact you if we notice you are not keeping up with your treatment plan. In addition to making appointments, it is important that you are forthcoming with information about your physical and emotional symptoms. This will all be compiled into medical records used to make a demand from the insurance company or other liable party during the settlement process. In some cases, your doctor may be called to make a recorded statement or testify in court about your injuries.
Investigation & Discovery
While you are treating for your injuries, our New Orleans personal injury lawyer team will begin investigating and gathering evidence to support your claim. If you have not already done so, we will set up an insurance claim. The first thing we will do is reach out to the insurance company or liable party with a Letter of Representation. This informs them that we are representing you in your claim against them and that all communication regarding your claim should go through our office. In order to best protect the outcome of your case, you should alert us immediately if the insurance company or defending party contacts you about your case.
The most important thing that an injured person can do to get the best result from their claim is to be regularly treated by a medical professional. This is one thing that our firm cannot do for you, though we can assist you in finding a doctor in New Orleans and setting up appointments.
We work with several local medical providers including chiropractors, neurologists and MRI technicians who allow us to guarantee the costs of your treatment in place of upfront costs. This is one of the many ways we help our clients focus on their recovery, instead of stressing about the immediate effect of their accidents.
Our New Orleans Personal Injury Lawyer will be regularly requesting your medical records and may contact you if we notice you are not keeping up with your treatment plan. In addition to making appointments, it is important that you are forthcoming with information about your physical and emotional symptoms. This will all be compiled into medical records used to make a demand from the insurance company or other liable party during the settlement process. In some cases, your doctor may be called to make a recorded statement or testify in court about your injuries.
Negotiations or Litigation
Once your treatment has finished, or at the point where we have gathered sufficient evidence of how much medical treatment you will need in the future, we will write a demand to be submitted to the insurance company. This will outline the evidence we have including your medical records, our estimates for what your future costs associated with the injuries are, and references to past trial decisions in similar New Orleans personal injury cases.
The insurance company will most likely not accept our demand. They will come back with an offer or request more evidence in order to make one. When we receive an offer on your behalf, our attorney will reach out to you to discuss it. During that conversation, you will decide whether you are ready to accept it, based on the advice of the attorney. We will continue to negotiate with the insurance company until our attorney believes you are getting a top offer for your case.
Most of the time, it is in the insurance company’s best interest to settle a claim out of court. The cost of litigation will fall on the defendant party if the judge and jury find them liable for your injuries. In some situations, an insurance company will not want to settle but will prefer a mediation take place. In mediation, both parties are allowed to present their evidence and arguments to a third party mediator. That mediator will help them come to a settlement agreement which will then be signed off on by a judge. Mediation is a cost and time efficient alternative to traditional litigation.
In the event that your case does go into litigation, we file an official lawsuit on your behalf. During the litigation process, you are referred to as the “Plaintiff” who has filed a “Petition” or “Complaint” against “Defendants.”
The first stage of personal injury litigation is “Discovery.” This refers to a list of questions and record requests involving your personal information, history, and medical records. We will guide you through this process, with one of our staff members focusing on making sure your “Answers” (responses to discovery) are honest and in your best interest.
Gathering the statements of witnesses and experts to support your lawsuit is done by holding “Depositions.” They will consist of a series of questions given by the defending party with your legal representative present. This may be done to record the statements of passengers in a vehicle, coworkers who witness a work accident, or medical providers and forensic experts. The statements are recorded on an audio file and also written by a court reporter so that a transcript can be produced. Both parties in the case will receive copies of these when the deposition is finished.
At the end of a discovery portion, if a settlement has not been reached, the case will go to trial. During the trial the evidence, witnesses and arguments will be presented to a judge or jury. The judge or jury will determine who is at fault, to what extent they are at fault, and what the awarded damages should be if any are determined.
Trials can take a long time and be quite expensive. It is always our goal to make sure you walk away with the best financial outcome possible. In some situations, the cost of the trial will not be the best outcome and we will advise you to settle out of court.
Settlement & Closing Cases
Once we have reached a settlement figure you are comfortable with, or the trial has ended, the case doesn’t immediately close. There are several legal things to wrap up before you can cash a check.
During the claim process, Cueria Law Firm, LLC, New Orleans will have collected all the medical bills you have outstanding because of your accident. We will compile these into an expenses sheet which will be outlined in your settlement statement. This includes contacting Medicaid or Medicare to find out if any bills were claimed by those programs, in which case you may have to pay them back. It is our job to make sure that any bills you are responsible for getting paid before the settlement is signed.
We may have also received a “lien notice” from parties who you have held a past unpaid debt to. Common examples of this include medical providers, unpaid child support, and prior legal representatives if you dismissed a lawyer on this case. We will do our best to investigate each one and negotiate the amount being billed for you. In some cases, we may give you a partial payment, withholding an amount which may be claimed by a lien holder until we have cleared up the final lien amount.
Once we have a clear understanding of where the money that has been awarded is going, we will call you to schedule a settlement meeting. During the settlement, the attorney will review what it legally means for you to accept the settlement offer. This will usually mean you are giving up any future right to make a claim. If you have any questions regarding this, you should ask our New Orleans personal injury attorney. After that, you will receive a check.
