For people facing difficulties of any kind – financial or medical, or because they have suffered injuries – there are laws to protect their rights and interests. Unfortunately in practice, very often the legal system defeats the solitary individual. Which is why, if you’re filing for bankruptcy or you have a personal injury claim, it helps to have a qualified bankruptcy attorney or personal injury lawyer on your side. Likewise if you are injured in the course of performing your job, you have legal rights. A workers compensation law firm can help to protect those rights and get you the full amount of compensation to which you are entitled.
Whether your problems are unexpected, like injury or an accident, or have been brewing for a while, like financial difficulties leading to bankruptcy, having an experienced legal team from a workers compensation law firm on your side can make all the difference to the outcomes.
Bankruptcy
It will surprise no one that with the state of the economy, personal bankruptcies are growing. People are increasingly living from paycheck to paycheck and finding it difficult to dig themselves out of debt. Statistics from US bankruptcy courts show that in an average year, over 1.5 million people file for bankruptcy. In 2014, the top five states in terms of number of bankruptcies filed were California, Florida, Illinois, Georgia and Ohio.
Theoretically anyone can file for bankruptcy on their own. In practice, having a lawyer help you through the process can make all the difference to the success or failure of the claim. For a start, there is a filing fee for bankruptcy claims. The filing fee is $335 for a Chapter 7 claim and for a Chapter 13 case, it is $310. The total cost of a Chapter 7 claim can come to $1,500 to $3,000.
For Chapter 7 bankruptcy claims, the success rate when an attorney files the claim on behalf of the client is more than 95%. This is compared to a 60% success rate for claims filed “pro se”, by the individual filing alone. For Chapter 13 bankruptcy claims filed by an attorney, the success rate is 55% , compared to just 04% for claims filed ?pro se?.
Personal injury claims
In legal terms, personal injury is distinguished from property damage. It covers injuries due to assault, traffic accidents, medical malpractice, and defective products. Like bankruptcy filings, having an attorney file a personal injury claim on your behalf can make a big difference to the outcome of the claim. Most personal injury claims are settled out of court and only 2% ever go to trial. To ensure that you get the best settlement due to you, it helps to let a lawyer handle the negotiations.
Motor vehicle accidents are the basis for 20% of federal civil personal injury claims, while products liability injuries account for 13%, and medical malpractice lawsuits account for 10% of the total claims. As in so many other areas of law, while there are laws in place to protect victims, having a lawyer on your side makes all the difference to the outcome.
Workers compensation
If you have suffered a workplace injury, a workers compensation law firm may be able to help you file a claim. More than 3 million, or 3,007,300 occupational illnesses and injuries were reported by workers in 2013. The large majority of the claims, as many as 85%, resulted from injuries sustained when workers slipped on slick floors in the workplace. More than one out of five, or 22%, of all slipping or falling incidents in the workplace led to the workers missing more than 31 days of work.
There are federal and state laws defining and protecting workplace safety. As many as 74% of the states have laws which require all businesses to have workers’ compensation, in case of workplace injuries. While the laws support injured workers, having a workers compensation law firm handle your claims can ensure that the amount of your settlement will be commensurate with the injuries you have suffered and the income lost due to injuries.