Top Personal Injury Case Questions
Best Personal Injury Lawyer Las Vegas
Before the filing of a lawsuit, most Nevada personal injury attorneys take cases on a contingency basis. This means that the attorney only gets paid a fee, which is a portion of your settlement if he or she settles your case. In Nevada, attorneys generally take 1/3 of the recovery. If the attorney does not settle your case before filing a lawsuit, you generally do not owe the attorney a fee, but you may be responsible for costs, such as postage, copies, medical records, etc. You must review your fee agreement with your attorney very carefully before signing it so you know what you costs and/or fees you are responsible for.
After you file a personal injury lawsuit, you may be responsible for the other party’s attorney’s fees. NRS 18.010 states that attorney’s fees may be awarded if the prevailing party has not recovered more than $20,000, or if the court finds that the suit was brought or maintained to harass the prevailing party.
Please note that if you are suing under a contract, you may be responsible for the other party’s attorney’s fees if you agreed to that provision when signing the contract.
Yes, you do not usually need money to hire a personal injury attorney. They work on a contingency fee so that they get paid from your settlement. If the personal injury attorney is asking for money from you before they begin your case, it might be best to consult with a different attorney.
In most cases, we can locate doctors who work on a lien. This means that the doctor agrees to be paid by the attorney from the settlement. This allows you to get medical treatment without having to pay for it up front.
Each case is different. In car accidents, it is generally a good fact if the other party received a citation. It may be difficult to find an attorney if you were the party the police deemed was at fault for an accident. In a slip and fall case, it is very important to file an incident report and take photos and videos of the scene of the slip and fall to show negligence.
Yes, if we can show that you needed to miss work because of an accident, we can generally get the insurance company to pay lost wages. The issue of lost wages is generally straightforward in a salaried employee. For people that work on commission, such as real estate agents, we may need to provide a historical account of earning over the course of many months or years to show a loss in income.
Your work will primarily consist of providing photos, videos, and names of witnesses, attending all medical appointments, keeping a journal of your mental and physical well-being, and maintaining contact with us. There is not usually much work for you to do.
Most cases start with a demand letter that it sent to the at fault party’s insurance company. It is the insurance company we are seeking recovery from at this stage, not your friend. Insurance companies are billion dollar a year industries. The reason that people purchase insurance is to protect them in case they are involved in an accident.
There may only be one insurance company to pay the claim, so the amount of settlement could be limited. It might be in your best interest to retain your own attorney to protect and defend your rights and pursue a claim to ensure you get your fair share of the settlement.
No. We need to pursue a claim against the UIM policy separately and can only do so if the at-fault party’s insurance paid the policy limit.
The police may not respond to an accident with little property damage and no one claiming injuries. However, if you were not at fault for the accident, it is best if you can get the police to come to the scene and make a determination of how the accident occurred and who was at fault. This helps prevent the at fault driver from lying about how the accident occurred and blaming you.
Yes, you might be able to still pursue a claim. Some injuries after an accident may take a few days before you experience pain. Generally, it is better to pursue a claim as quickly as possible after an accident, but if you have waited a relatively short period of time to start treatment, and your injuries are related to the accident, we should discuss pursuing a claim.
It depends on your treatment. We do not usually begin attempting to settle a case until the medical treatment is finished. If we try to settle to soon, you may not be compensated for all your medical bills. The exception to this is if you are still treating, but the auto policy is only $25,000 maximum. In this case, we may have a settlement check within a few months of your accident.
We can assist you with finding a treating physician, pain management doctor, chiropractor, physical therapist, and other providers and setting up the initial appointment. If you have someone you worked with previously, we can work with them, too.
Any injuries we are claiming must come from this accident, but if there were prior injuries and this accident made them worse, we will include them in your claim.
The doctor schedules your visits to make sure you heal properly. If you frequently miss appointments, it may negatively affect your case because the insurance company may not believe you were injured or still experience pain.
In most cases, you can change doctors, but it is best to discuss this with your attorney first.
The most common injuries are soft tissue injuries, which are damages to connective tissues and whiplash.
There is not a clear cut or legal definition of serious or minor car accident. It can be generally said that the greater the injury to the car, the greater the injury to the person. For example, if a car is totaled, we might expect a person may experience greater pain than if he were involved in a fender bender; however, this is not always the case. In general, a serious accident is one where a person suffers pain for weeks, months, or years afterward.
Whiplash occurs when there is a severe jerk to the head, usually from a car accident, but it can result from amusement park rides and blows to the head. It can be extremely serious and can take weeks or months to recover. Harvard Medical states that 1/2 of all people who experience whiplash have pain more than a year after their accident and 10% of all whiplash cases result in chronic neck pain. For more information, click here. https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Whiplash
Yes, it is one of the most common car accident injuries.
What are the symptoms of whiplash?
- Neck pain
- More pain when the neck is moved
- Inability to move neck
- Headaches
- Tenderness in the shoulders, arms, and upper back
- Numbness
- Fatigue
- Dizziness
- Blurred vision
- Ringing in the ears
- Memory Problems
- Depression
- Difficulty concentrating
Whiplash can occur at very low speeds of 5 to 10 miles per hour, which are typical speeds in parking lots. This is especially true if your car is stopped and someone runs into you.
Whiplash used to be treated with a collar, but long-term use of this treatment is no longer widely used. Typical treatment just after an accident is ice, over the counter pain reliever or prescription narcotics, and prescribed stretching exercises. If the pain has not decreased after several months, the doctor may try Radiofrequency neurotomy, which involves applying an electrical current to a specific joint.
Yes, the head doesn’t need to move forward and backward. Whiplash can be caused by side to side movement.
According to the Mayo Clinic, people experience a loss of range of motion in the neck. The headaches usually start at the base of the skull. There may be pain in the shoulders, upper arms, or back, and numbness in the arms.
Your doctor will give you a written diagnosis for whiplash and prescribe treatment.
We need a doctor’s diagnosis, photographs of the accident, witness statements, and the police report.
- Older age
- Prior whiplash
- Existing back pain
- High impact injury
It may show up on an MRI, but it this is not always the case. The doctor may also diagnose you by asking you how you are feeling and where you are experiencing pain.
It is best to get a police report because it shows who was at fault for the accident. The other party may claim that you were at fault when you were not. You can obtain a report yourself, but we will get it for you. If you want more information about obtaining a report for an accident that occurred in Metro’s jurisdiction, click here. https://www.lvmpd.com/en-us/RecordsFingerprintBureau/Pages/ObtainingRecords.aspx
It takes approximately 7 days from the date of request.
Yes, we will obtain it for you, but you need to sign a document before we request it.
Yes, but whether you can obtain the report depends on the jurisdiction. Here is an article on how to obtain a report anywhere in Nevada. https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2018/09/10/nevada-police-report-request/1081494002/
If the officer made a determination of who was at fault, he or she will usually include this in the report.
The Nevada Department of Transportation has excellent advice that can be found here.