When To Represent Yourself In Car Accident Claims

Represent yourself? If you had an important legal matter, would you hire a brand new lawyer who still has training wheels on his briefcase? Not likely. Yet you are thinking about handling an important legal matter even though you have no legal experience . . . and no legal training.   Is that realistic? Can you really represent yourself and handle your own car accident claims? My answer is . . . yes! . . . and no! (Can you believe that, as a lawyer, I can charge real money for giving answers like that!?) Stick with me though. My answer actually makes more sense than it seems. Let me explain . . .

You can definitely represent yourself in some car accident claims . . . and save hundreds or thousands of dollars in legal fees!! . . . but some types of claims are more than a do-it-yourselfer should try.  Here's my advice for how to tell which car accident claims you can handle yourself and which you should turn over to a pro.

1. You want to.

You have to want to represent yourself, or at least be willing to invest the necessary time and effort.

 AND

2. You're willing to put a little effort into learning the "rules of the road."

Learning how to do it and then handling the claims will take some time and effort, but not as much as you might think. But if you don't want to invest the time, read no further. Don't represent yourself. Contact a car accident lawyer. Click here to get some tips on how to hire a lawyer.

My estimate is that you can learn enough to try to negotiate a settlement of a routine car accident claim in about 3 - 5 hours. If you have to go to arbitration, mediation, or small claims court , add another 2 - 3 hours of training. If you have to go to regular court, count on spending much more time educating yourself. These estimates are for training time. You will have to spend more time actually doing the activities that you learn.

If you want to represent yourself, get some education. Of course, I think my new ebook, The Car Accident Claims Kit, is the best help you can get. In it, I boiled down the information at this website, organized it in the Car Accident Claims Checklist that I created and added all the necessary forms, with examples. My goal is for the book to literally put thousands more in your pocket by saving legal fees. The book costs less than $50 and it comes with a 60 day no questions asked money back guarantee. And, on top of that, I am also giving purchasers of my ebook a free personal informational consultation about their case.

 AND

3. The insurance company for the driver who caused your accident admits responsibility, or, in the lingo of the industry, "admits liability."

If the "Bad Guys" agree that they are responsible for compensating you, you're half way home. Now, all you have to do is marshal the evidence of what losses you have suffered and negotiate a fair amount to compensate you for those losses. Click here for information and tips on presenting your car accident claims.

BUT, if the Bad Guys deny liability and won't voluntarily pay you anything, contact a lawyer and get an evaluation of your case. You've got a fight on your hands and you need a legal gunslinger.

AND

4. You are negotiating an out-of-court settlement, are going to mediation, are going to arbitration or are going to small claims court.

In out-of-court negotiations, arbitration or mediation , while you will have to learn the procedures to follow, there are no formal and technical rules that will cause your case to go down the tubes if you violate them. But in "regular court," you will have to follow the same rules of procedure and evidence that the lawyers on the other side do. (Yeah, in court the other side will definitely be represented by a lawyer so you have to be ready for that.)

So, here's my bottom line: A case worth taking to regular court is worth winning. Hire a lawyer!

 AND

5. You do not have significant permanent injuries.

This is another way of saying that you should only represent yourself in cases where the stakes are relatively small. You wouldn't want to represent yourself in a million dollar case and lose because of what you don't know (ignorance may be bliss, but it's not a winning court strategy), but you might take the risk in a $10,000 case. The bigger the claim, the more benefit a trained expert can provide.

If you have a broken bone, herniated disc, or vitually anything more serious than a soft tissue injury (sprain, strain), you should strongly consider hiring a lawyer.

 OR

6. You don't have any other choice!

Sometimes, you just don't have any other choice. Maybe your claim is so small that no lawyer wants to represent you, or maybe your liability case is so iffy that you can't get a lawyer to handle it on a contingent fee basis. If the alternative is dropping your claim, you are convinced that you are right and you've got evidence to support your view, go for it! Represent yourself!

Think of representing yourself this way. If I came to your job tomorrow, you could probably train me to do some of the things that you do within a day or so, provided that I make the effort to learn. But you couldn?t teach me to do the most complicated things that you do in a week or even longer. The same is true of you trying to learn what I do. You can learn much of it in a reasonable period of time, and you can handle many of the claim resolution activities yourself. But you can't learn to be a trial lawyer in "regular court" in a short time. It's foolish to try. The risks are too great. If you're going to regular court, hire a lawyer.