Having a personal injury lawyer by your side fighting for your rights in a personal injury case can substantially impact the outcome and your success.
Just as in the medical field where there are different types of doctors with different areas of focus, so too are there varying types of attorneys who work in the divergent branches of the law. The legal world is complex, with laws stretching back hundreds of years. Each US state has its own legislation, as well as federal and local laws that are also applicable. So to become an attorney and be knowledgeable about a particular area of the law, it’s usually necessary to focus on one area, such as personal injury.
Otherwise, lawyers risk only having a general overview of all the many levels of law and not providing the sort of detailed knowledge and real-world experience that their clients need to help make their cases succeed. This means there are many types of attorneys, including criminal, corporate, employment, bankruptcy, intellectual property, estate planning, and personal injury lawyers.
Student lawyers usually opt for an area of the law that they feel drawn towards or that’s more interesting for them compared to other areas. Personal injury lawyers, like us here at Clardy Law Firm, for instance, often have a deep interest in using the law to help people who are suffering and in desperate need of justice to right a wrong that’s happened to them. This, after all, is a fundamental aspect of the law.
What Is Personal Injury Law?
Personal injury law covers a wide area of accidents that result in the injury of an innocent party — someone who did not contribute to the accident and was injured through no fault of their own. It comes under tort law (the Tort Claims Act in South Carolina) and provides ways for people to seek a remedy for injuries and losses resulting from an incident or accident that was due to someone’s intentional or negligent behaviour or conduct.
So personal injury law includes:
- All kinds of accidents, whether they happen at the mall, at work, on the roads, or anywhere else.
- Defective products, or product liability, such as medical devices and vehicle parts that lead to harm.
- Assault and battery.
- Defamation, or slander and libel, when someone says something publicly that results in losses or harm to someone else.
Personal injury laws can be made by each state’s legislature or by common law, where a judge renders a decision in a case, and it then becomes precedent and is used to decide future cases. The time limit, or statute of limitations, for making personal injury claims in US states differs. Here in South Carolina, it’s three years from the date of an accident, with extensions possible in some cases.
Claims usually start by contacting an insurance company where the other party has a policy and attempting to negotiate a settlement. This is something personal injury lawyers typically handle for their clients, as talks can be tricky, and insurance firms will try to get away with the lowest settlement possible, or even none. Claims head to trial if discussions are not successful.
Types of Cases That Personal Injury Lawyers Take On
One of the biggest areas for personal injury lawyers around the United States is auto accidents because of the sheer volume of vehicles on the roads (around 276 million). Here in South Carolina, some 1.75 million vehicles are registered in the state, a mix of private and commercial cars, trucks, and motorcycles, and accidents can and unfortunately do happen — frequently.
The latest South Carolina auto accident figures show that of an average of 140 thousand traffic collisions per year, 540 of them were fatal in 2020. This led to the tragic loss of 576 lives and left thousands of others injured and needing extensive and expensive medical care and long recovery periods.
Experienced car accident lawyers can help put victims’ lives back together by getting them access to justice and a financial settlement for what happened to them. This includes wrongful death cases when someone was killed in an auto accident, leaving a grieving family behind. And you may need a knowledgeable DUI accident lawyer if an accident was caused by an intoxicated driver.
Injuries at work are another common area that personal injury lawyers work in. There are all kinds of workplaces, and some can have inherent dangers, like a construction site or a factory. Our firm, for example, focuses on workers’ compensation settlements as part of our personal injury services, negotiating with employers and other parties to get justice and a financial payout for our clients who were injured at work, or heading to court if necessary.
Other Kinds of Personal Injury Cases in South Carolina
Anyone who knows and lives in South Carolina is surely aware that we have a large deer population, estimated at around 730 thousand animals. During the breeding season, towards the end of the year, they move around a lot more in search of a mate — and cause over 3 thousand collisions with vehicles every year. This has become another area of personal injury claims for our firm and many others in the state, as deer collisions damage property and cause injuries.
Whether your vehicle is struck by a deer or another vehicle, or whether you’re injured anywhere else in South Carolina and you didn’t contribute to the accident or incident, you deserve your rights under the law. Preparing for a personal injury claim is not always easy or straightforward because you can’t just say you were wronged — you have to prove you were and that the other party was at fault.
This is where knowledeable Greenville, SC personal injury lawyers become invaluable: helping you gather the evidence you need to make your case and get a settlement. It starts with getting a police report detailing the accident, medical reports outlining the extent of your injuries and subsequent treatment, and statements from any witnesses to the accident who may back up your case.
Failing to do this properly and within the statute of limitations could mean you end up with nothing instead of a sizable compensation package, and that would be a real shame. Your personal injury lawyers are there to protect your rights, collect the necessary proof, negotiate with various parties, represent you in court — and fight to get as much compensation for what happened to you as possible.
Have you been injured in an accident or injury in South Carolina that you didn’t cause? Know your rights and how much you could get in a settlement by getting a free consultation with our personal injury lawyers at Clardy Law Firm now.
