How to Make the Most of A Free Consultation with An Injury Attorney
June 14, 2018
Experienced personal injury attorneys, Dustin Crook and Caleb Biesterveld provide clients with free initial case consultations. These consultations are when attorneys will attempt to gather facts you recall from the incident, such as names, dates, times, and insurance coverage information. Following the consultation, the attorneys at Biesterveld & Crook, LLC. will begin the investigation process and refer the client to the best health care providers.
Consider the following tips to be best prepared for a free consultation.
What to Bring
Some free consultations are done over the phone when necessary, but the attorneys at Biesterveld & Crook, LLC. prefer meeting potential clients in person for this initial introduction. In the event that our office location is not a convenient for this meeting, a personal injury attorney can travel to meet up at a location that works better. As mentioned, this consultation can be done over the phone when necessary though.
First, identification is needed to verify the identity of the person in the consultation. This is purely a formality to ensure that the person is indeed who they say they are. Next, we ask that any information about insurance be brought in. A personal injury attorney will need to view the details of the insurance policy to better understand the possible damages that can be recovered from the incident.
There are many different types of personal injury cases: motor vehicle wrecks, property damage cases, defective product liability, animal attack cases, commercial trucking negligence, and nursing home abuse. Whatever the injury case may be, it’s important to bring any pictures or evidence of the incident. For car wrecks and animal attacks, pictures of the vehicles, animals, and/or injuries are useful. For property damage, pictures of the property itself and the damage it caused are encouraged. If a defective product led to the claim, bring in the defective product if at all possible.
Other Helpful Tips
If a case number has already been assigned to the incident, or if an incident report number exists, it’s important to bring those along to the consultation. For motor vehicle collisions, officers usually give concerned parties information exchange slips that contain these necessary details. This information is helpful for personal injury attorneys because they can further research the case and become more familiar with the specific details of what happened and what has been done already in the case.
Following a personal injury incident, especially vehicle collisions in particular, various reporting parties and entities may consult with those who were involved. The attorneys at Biesterveld & Crook, LLC. discourage speaking with insurance companies until speaking with one of our attorneys. However, in the case that an injured party contacts an insurance company, this correspondence needs to be kept. Any correspondence from insurance companies, auto body repair shops, or reporting officers that responded to the scene is crucial to the case. Biesterveld & Crook, LLC. recommends bringing this information in to a consultation.
A personal injury claim can take months to years to resolve. A lot can happen in that time period. Some of the specific details can be skewed over time, as it gets harder to recall the incident. It is strongly encouraged that a timeline of events be constructed as soon as possible following the case. This will give a personal injury attorney an accurate snapshot of what happened from a potential client’s perspective. The attorney can also refer back to this throughout the case and research the events further.
Free consultations are designed to provide clients with a first meeting, share their case with an experienced professional, and learn about the next steps in filing a personal injury claim. As personal injury attorneys, Biesterveld and Crook are happy to help in fighting for the justice you deserve if you or your loved ones have suffered from a personal injury accident. These types of injuries can lead to losing out on enjoyable activities and can make day-to-day tasks much more difficult. Anyone suffering these losses deserve to be compensated accordingly.
Contact Biesterveld & Crook, LLC. if you are looking for a personal injury attorney to represent you in your case. We are licensed to represent injury victims in Kansas and Missouri.