San Clemente Personal Injury Attorney

Defining a personal injury case can be tricky. There are all sorts of ways a person can fall victim to harm. And all these circumstances need to be considered carefully if you want to take legal action in light of them. 

Fortunately, you never have to define a personal injury accident on your own, nor do you have to take your own claim to court. Instead, you can let a personal injury lawyer in San Clemente go to work for you. 

1Law’s personal injury lawyers have the expertise needed to classify your case, compose an accurate claim, and file it within California’s statute of limitations. All you need to do when faced with a personal injury is decide how you want to address your accident’s losses.

It’s Time to Call a Personal Injury Lawyer

The hours – and even days – following your personal injury accident can be among the most stressful you ever endure. That’s why it’s often easier to tackle these days with help. If you call a personal injury attorney within hours of your accident, you can get ahead of the obstacles that might otherwise delay your recovery.

Our personal injury lawyers offer several services, even on the day your accident occurs. We can communicate with your insurance provider to file for coverage. We can also ensure that neither police officers nor a liable party twist the circumstances of your accident to suit their means.

In short, we represent your best interests from the moment your accident occurs. The sooner you reach out to our team, the easier recovering your accident compensation can be.

The Perks of Working With a Personal Injury Attorney

When you first contact a personal injury attorney, you’ll have the opportunity to discuss the nature of your case. During this initial case consultation, our personal injury attorneys in San Clemente, CA, can make it clear that:

We Prioritize Your Recovery

Personal injury accidents impact different people in different ways. A dog bite may require more recovery time than a slip and fall accident, for example – or vice versa. Either way, our team wants to take on the bulk of the effort when building your case. This way, you can focus on recovering from your injuries without sacrificing your right to legal action.

What’s more, we help you stay on top of California’s personal injury statute of limitations. This statute dictates that you may not file a personal injury lawsuit after a certain date. California Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1 sets this date at two years from the day your accident takes place.

There are exceptions that may allow you to pursue personal injury compensation after the date set by your statute of limitations, of course. If you’re concerned about your coming deadline, consult with one of our attorneys. We can discuss the workarounds that might allow us more time to investigate your case.

Our Experience Helps Build Your Case

Our team has several combined decades of experience addressing personal injury cases throughout California. It’s that experience that makes a personal injury lawyer indispensable when you want to take a personal injury case to court. 

Familiarity with personal injury statutes allows us to accurately calculate the compensation to which you may be entitled while also holding the proper parties accountable for your losses. It also helps us get ahead of any party’s attempt to manipulate you out of the financial support that your losses might otherwise entitle you to.

We strive to make this experience available to you in-person as well as online. That’s why we offer our 1Law app to active clients and interested parties. If you have questions about your personal injury case, you can use this app to make use of our expansive library of knowledge. If you decide you want to move forward with your case, we can schedule a consultation.

We Want to Give You Options

It’s easy to feel like you’re losing control of your life in the wake of a personal injury accident. Our team strives to put you back in the metaphorical driver’s seat. Your complaint, in this way, gives you more than the opportunity to hold someone accountable for your losses. It also enables you to choose how you enact that responsibility.

More specifically, you can pursue personal injury compensation in one of two ways after an accident. If you’d prefer a more traditional approach, you can take the party you believe to be liable for your losses to court. This process involves several steps, including:

• Discovery
• Opening statements
• Examination
• Cross-examination
• Closing statements
• Verdict

We stand with you throughout this process and can keep you informed as your case progresses. While giving a judge power over your case can relieve some of your related stress, do note that traditional suits often take several months, if not years, to resolve.

Alternatively, you can pursue out-of-court personal injury settlement negotiations. These negotiations give you more direct power over your right to financial support. However, the defendant in your case may expect you to sacrifice some of your desired compensation in favor of expediency. We, fortunately, can represent you throughout these negotiations.

1Law Addresses the Gamut of Personal Injury Accidents

The term “personal injury” addresses more than one type of loss. You may have been in a personal injury accident if you’ve experienced:

• Car accidents
• Motorcycle accidents
• Property liability accidents
• Accidents involving public entities
• Animal attacks
• Medical malpractice
• Nursing home abuse

1Law in San Clemente understands how California law dictates your right to act in these cases. In turn, we can work with you to establish your right to file a claim as well as liability and your ideal compensation. If you don’t see your accident listed here, don’t worry. You can still meet with our attorneys and determine how our services might best suit your circumstances.

How to Establish Liability in a Personal Injury Case

Because the nature of personal injury cases can be so inconsistent, liability and the factors that contribute to it need to be determined on a case-by-case basis. More specifically, personal injury claims need to use evidence to back an injured party’s claim of liability.

There are several forms of evidence that you can use when establishing liability after a personal injury accident. Our team can gather this evidence a few days after your accident or at a later date. You do not have to return to the scene of your accident for us to conduct our investigation. That said, we may request your testimony when analyzing the data we have on hand.

The evidence a San Clemente personal injury lawyer can use to establish a violated duty of care after a personal injury accident can include:

• Photos of the accident
• Video footage of the accident
• Bystander testimony describing the accident
• Legal precedent throughout California
• Expert witness statements regarding your losses
• Accident recreations

Once we have this information on hand, we can more effectively detail the circumstances of your accident to a county clerk. So long as a clerk approves your personal injury claim, we can then elaborate further on a particular party’s liability – either in court or in independent negotiations.

Your Personal Injury Complaint Can Help You Recover Damages

Personal injury complaints do more than help you hold an applicable party accountable for your accident losses. They also enable you to request compensation for those losses. In requesting compensation, you can make your recovery much simpler – or, at least, less stressful.

When valuing your personal injury case, our attorneys find the sum of your economic and non-economic damages. We do this by breaking down the expenses affiliated with your accident, comparing them against state precedent, and exploring every possible avenue for support that you might benefit from.

Economic Personal Injury Damages

The expenses known as “economic damages” reflect the costs you have to contend with in the wake of a personal injury. In many cases, these expenses are the simplest to calculate. They often come with paper bills and/or invoices, making them easy to prove in court, as well. 

In the wake of a personal injury, your economic damages are likely to vary based on the nature of your accident. Our team can start by assessing the value of some of the more common economic losses associated with your condition before moving into the more specific ones. These can include:

• Medical expenses related to your accident care
• Property damaged in your accident
• At-home care needed to restore your previous quality of life
• Medical aids
• Lost wages
• Lost opportunities to work
• Funeral expenses

So long as you can bring forward bills and/or other forms of evidence indicating that you endured these damages at the hands of another party, our team can fight to include them in your estimated compensation.

Non-Economic Personal Injury Damages

Your non-economic personal injury damages are less concrete than their economic cousins. In most cases, non-economic damages tend to be emotional in their nature. Valuing these losses falls not on physical evidence but rather on state-set multipliers. Our team can assess the nature of the non-economic losses you endured and apply California’s multipliers accordingly.

Common non-economic damages associated with personal injury accidents include pain and suffering, emotional distress, and stress. You can include wrongful death or fatal accident costs in your estimate, as well. For more information on how we calculate personal injury settlements, including the value of non-economic multipliers, you can schedule a consultation with our team.

You’ve Received a Personal Injury Settlement Offer: What Now?

If the party believed to be liable for your losses acknowledges their role in your accident, that may choose to offer you a personal injury settlement. You don’t have to accept a settlement offer out of hand, though these offers can often indicate a party’s willingness to cooperate with your civil suit. Instead, you can contact our personal injury lawyers in San Clemente, CA. 

Our team can look over a personal injury settlement offer and ensure that it covers the full extent of your losses. We calculate our own version of your personal injury settlement to ensure that you’re not being shorted. If a defendant appears to have overlooked some of your accident losses, we can bring those oversights up during independent negotiations.

Our Team Knows How to Handle Uncooperative Defendants

There are times when the person you want to hold liable for personal injury losses may refuse to communicate with you. Fortunately, California gives you the means to act. If the person you name in your civil complaint does not respond to your summons within thirty days of the complaint’s approval, you may have an easier time bringing your concerns forward in court.

What’s more, our attorneys can step in and make the process more bearable. We strive to ensure that all communications between yourself and a defendant are as civil as possible. We can also intercede if it appears that the defendant may be using intimidation tactics to try and talk you out of civil action.

It’s our job to defend you from inappropriate treatment when taking another party to court. If you have concerns about a defendant’s behavior, talk to our personal injury lawyers. We’re prepared to not only help you address your personal injury but to bring a defendant’s poor behavior up in front of a judge.

Personal Injury Lawyers Advocate for Your Post-Accident Rights

Personal injuries come in a variety of forms, but they all deserve serious legal attention. If you want to take the party liable for your personal injury accident to civil court, let 1Law represent your best interests. Our personal injury attorneys in San Clemente have the experience to either helm negotiations or advocate for you in front of a judge.

For more information about the work, our personal injury lawyers can do for you, contact 1Law today. You can schedule a free case consultation with our personal injury attorneys by calling our office or by using our free online legal chat.