When you’re wondering how long it will take to settle your personal injury case, perhaps the best place to direct that question to is your personal injury attorney. Unfortunately, you may not get an exact time frame, as every situation is unique and will take a different amount of time than the next. While this could get frustrating at the beginning of the process, there are some factors to look at that typically affect the length of a case.
Receiving Medical Treatment
Depending on the severity of your injuries, you may have a lot of medical treatment or you may only have minimal treatment. This could be the most important factor affecting the length of time your case will take. One issue you should strive to avoid is settling too quickly. If you do that, you may not receive all the compensation you deserve for future medical treatment.
Instead, visit with your physician in depth. You have until the statute of limitations runs out, which is typically around two years in many states, so use that time wisely to get diagnosed and treated. If your injuries are minor, you could settle more quickly. If they’re extensive, the case could last a while.
Legal or Factual Errors
Nobody is immune to mistakes, including you, your lawyer, your doctors, police officers, and witnesses at the scene of your accident. The more information you collect, the less likely it will be to run across errors. Still, with all of the work your attorney does to gather evidence, statements, and documents, a legal or factual error could set your case back a few weeks or even months.
Negotiations for Large Sums of Money
If your case includes a large amount of money, there could be ongoing negotiations that drag your case out. Nobody wants to hand over a large amount of money to someone else, so the defendant and his or her lawyer may employ every trick in the book to delay the case and avoid a large settlement amount.
Individuals Involved in the Case
If you have joined a lawsuit against an individual who caused many injuries to multiple people, that could cause your case to take longer. For example, if a drunk driver crashed his or her car into a group of people at a fair, there could be hundreds of injured individuals all filing a lawsuit against that one driver.
Getting Assistance from a Personal Injury Lawyer
You may not know how long your case is going to take, but there are some factors you can discuss with your lawyer to get a close estimate. Contact a lawyer, like a personal injury lawyer in Rockville, MD from the Law Office of Daniel J. Wright, today for assistance.