How Much is My Personal Injury Case Worth?

This video features J.D. Smith, a Personal Injury attorney based in Washington.

JD Smith | 888-981-0015 | Free Consult

One of the most common concerns expressed by people considering hiring an attorney: how much is my personal injury case worth? Does it make sense to file a lawsuit?

This Quick Question features JD Smith, a car accident attorney in Seattle with the Law Office of JD Smith, PLLC. He has been a Super Lawyer from 2007 to 2019, and he was the recipient of the Professionalism Award from the Washington State Association of Justice. In this video, he explains that many factors go into the value of a personal injury case, and a good attorney can help explain these to you during a free consultation.

To learn more, contact the attorney directly by calling 888-981-0015 or by submitting a contact form on this page. The consultation is free and confidential, and you owe no out-of-pocket attorney fees.

Insurance companies look for specific things when deciding the worth of your case.

One of the first things an insurance company will do when considering how much they can convince you to settle for is to evaluate the nature and extent of the injury itself. They will evaluate the permanence of the injury, surgical procedures required, whether scarring exists, as well as the potential for permanent disability, wage loss, medical bills, and mileage you will need travel to and from medical appointments. These are all considered economic damages, and are tangible damages an insurance company can calculate to decide what they want to offer you in compensation for your injury. However, this number likely won’t include non-economic damages, which can be just as far-reaching and traumatic.

Non-economic damages are harder to put a price on.

Non-economic damages are important factors an attorney will consider in determining the potential worth of your case. Non-economic damages are sometimes called quality-of-life or “general” damages, and they can include pain and suffering, humiliation, reputational damage, loss of enjoyment of activities, loss of companionship, loss of limb, and more. Essentially, non-economic damages encompass any damages that are not fully tangible. While an attorney may be able to identify and prove these damages, forcing an insurance company to alter the amount of compensation they were willing to provide the victim, this could be a much trickier accomplishment if you attempt to handle a lawsuit on your own.

Many people find there are more non-economic damages involved in their case than they initially realized.

An experienced attorney will usually be able to secure a much larger compensation for you than you could otherwise do on your own. If you’re thinking there’s no way you can afford to hire an attorney, there’s some good news for you. Most personal injury attorneys work on contingency, which means you don’t pay unless and until they win. With this in mind, it’s wise to at least contact an attorney and see what they can do to protect your interests and recoup your damages, both economic and non-economic.

To learn more, contact JD Smith directly by calling 888-981-0015 or by submitting a contact form on this page. The consultation is free and confidential, and you owe no out-of-pocket attorney fees.

Video Transcript:

Rob Rosenthal:
I’m Rob Rosenthal and this is a Quick Question from AskTheLawyers.com. Do you know how to tell what your personal injury case is worth? Seattle attorney JD Smith has the answer.

JD Smith:
It’s a very subjective question on what your case is worth. One of the evaluations or some of the things that insurance companies use or that we use for that matter, are: what is the nature and extent of the actual injury, whether any components of the injury are permanent, if there’s any kind of surgical procedure required where there’s any scarring that you’re left with, any kind of permanent disability, wage loss, and some of the things that are out of pocket, they’re fairly easy, like medical bills, wage loss mileage to and from appointments, those are somewhat easy to at least calculate, but the non-economic is very subjective, and very difficult. And oftentimes what we find is that during the process of exploring as we find things that people hadn’t thought about or realize that are compensable and this is in some ways why cases are often worth a lot more when you have a lawyer than going at it alone.

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