How Long Is My Case Going to Take?
At Willis, Willis & Rizzi we’re often asked, “How long is my personal injury case going to take?” The key factor here is, do you want to be fully compensated? We can speed things up, we can get a personal injury case done very quickly, but you’re probably not going to be pleased with the outcome.
One of the simplest ways to think about how long a case is going to take is to think about the case in terms of an X and Y axis. “How much is my case worth?” and “how long is my case going to take?” are usually two sides of the same coin. Basically, if you want full compensation, you often will need to wait a little longer.
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To do it right, to get you fully and fairly compensated, is going to take a certain amount of time. This is because there are certain variables that cannot be sped up. The most important variable is your medical recovery. It’s going to take time for your body to heal. The road to recovery is very important to respect, it is the key to you getting fully compensated, and with some injuries it is going to take a significant amount of time.
There are other variables that can delay a case, but don’t need to, and that is where you need a good personal injury attorney. There are many players in an injury case that like to play games and cause delays. For example, health insurance can play games, the hospital can play games with billing, other medical providers can cause delays. So, you can find yourself in a situation where there is an unnecessary chunk of time that has caused a delay in your case because you didn’t have the right attorney who was on top of these things. There is a great deal of behind-the-scenes management of the variables in every case and you need a professional, efficient legal team on your side to keep on top of those things and to eliminate any delays that are unnecessary.
And of course, you have the insurance company who you are seeking a recovery from, and they LOVE to play games! There is an old saying: “Justice delayed is justice denied”. That’s because insurance companies want to hold on to that money as long as they can, and they want to pay you as little as possible. The longer that money stays in their possession, the more interest and investment returns they can make from it. So generally speaking, insurance companies don’t mind delays, they welcome them.
Once your case has reached a point where you feel like you have made a full recovery, you will want to start speeding things up with your case, knocking out delays, and submitting that case to the insurance company. At that point, the insurance company may make an offer on your case that is in the right ballpark, and perhaps a fairly small amount of negotiation will wrap up that case. But: there are other times when the insurance company is making an offer that bears no relationship to the value of your injuries. It happens a lot. At that point, we are talking to you about the next steps, such as litigation, and that is going to take additional time.
At every stage of the process, you should be involved. Your personal injury attorney should be talking to you about these different chapters in your case. If your case has to be filed in court, litigation can take a long time. There are several stages of litigation, and typically from the time of filing a lawsuit to a resolution of that case it is a minimum of six months, and is usually longer.
At Willis, Willis & Rizzi We Take a Different Approach
When you are thinking about how long your case is going to take, keep in mind there are some attorneys out there that for them, this is sort of an assembly line, and you are just a widget that is moving across the factory floor. They are not going to necessarily go that extra mile or spend that extra time on your claim. They are going to go for the low hanging fruit, they are going to go for the easy dollars. They will call you and say they think they have your case done and want to set up a time for you to come in and discuss. They might talk to you about the value they obtained and might try to sell you on that value as to why it is a good number. But listen to yourself: if it doesn’t sound like a good number to you, ask questions.
At Willis, Willis & Rizzi, we don’t believe that is the way to do things. We want a client to walk out of our doors at the end of a case pleased with our representation, pleased with the recovery they have obtained, and with no lingering issues with a case that is completely closed.
Contact us today at 330-535-2000 or fill in the request form on this page to speak to a personal injury attorney today.