IMPORTANT NOTICE
COVID-19 Update! We are still open and accepting appointments. A live operator will answer at (815) 545-4080 24/7 OR call us at (815) 219-8342 for any help.

Balke & Williams

Call Now For A Free Strategy Session

(815) 495-5598

IMPORTANT NOTICE
COVID-19 Update! We are still open and accepting appointments. A live operator will answer at (815) 545-4080 24/7 OR call us at (815) 219-8342 for any help.

Balke & Williams

When a case is filed, as discussed earlier the plaintiff has to go through a number of steps. First, we have to exchange documents with the defense and answer some written questions for them. They have to do the same for us. Then comes the plaintiff’s deposition. This is nerve-wracking, but don’t worry: I will train you ahead of time and be sitting right next to you the entire time.

How Do You Determine Whether Or Not To Take A Personal Injury Case to Trial?

A major injury case is much more likely to go through some litigation than a minor one is. If your injury is worth $10,000.00, for example, it may not be worth it to you and your attorney to go through litigation, because it may not be cost- or time-effective for you. $20,000.00 is a good estimate of the minimum cost of a trial. Therefore, if an injury is worth $10,000.00, we are not going to spend $20,000.00 to take it to a trial. Any of the “winnings” would be washed out by the amount we spent.

However, if the injuries are worth a million dollars or more, the opposite is true. In major cases, I am going to pull out all of the stops to show how serious the injury is, price be damned. (I have a fund dedicated to paying my on-call experts in such cases.)

How Often Do Personal Injury Cases Go to Trial?

Personal injury cases do not go to trial often: figure that ninety-five percent of cases do NOT go to trial. The ones that usually go to trial are those in which a plaintiff commits a major mistake, such as: giving the insurance company information that they should not have obtained; missing appointments; not hiring an attorney; or not making a proper presentation. When the plaintiff makes one or more of these mistakes, the insurance company is much more likely to try their luck at trial. Insurance companies have a greater risk tolerance than a single plaintiff does. My client and I have only one chance. The insurance company may go to trial 10,000 times in a year or more. If they lose a few of them, so be it. We are going to have one shot to recover for this injury, and that is it.

How Does Going To Trial Affect The Cost Of The Personal Injury Claim?

Trial is going to be costly in any personal injury claim, which is why so many cases do not go to trial. All trials are expensive, both for the plaintiff and for the insurance company. Let’s say the insurance company offers $50,000.00. If this amount was not sufficient, then to take it to a proper trial we would have to spend $20,000.00. Therefore, in order to get back to where we started, we would have to win $70,000.00, which would cover the original $50,000.00 offer plus the $20,000.00 trial costs.

Are Personal Injury Plaintiffs Generally Willing To Settle Or Not?

About ninety-five percent of the time it makes more sense to settle. As stated, the insurance company may go through a thousand trials in any given year. They have more risk tolerance than the plaintiff does, because the plaintiff is only going to do it once. Therefore, if we go to trial and get a zero-dollar award on that $50,000.00 case, we get zero dollars. However, if the insurance company loses by the same margin in the same case, then that is not as big a deal to the insurance company because they still have nine-hundred ninety-nine more trials that year.

How Long Does It Take Someone To Get Paid In A Personal Injury Settlement?

It may take a couple of weeks or a month to be reimbursed for a case. Once the case settles, as mentioned earlier I turn around and negotiate with hospitals and the doctors to lower your medical bills. Hospitals and doctors do not expect to be paid one hundred percent of their bills. These negotiations may slow us down, but it saves you a lot of money in the end. And a dollar saved spends just as easily as a dollar made.

For more information on Filing A Personal Injury Claim in IL, a free initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (815) 495-5598 today.

Balke & Williams

Call Now For A Free Strategy Session
(815) 495-5598