What To Bring To Your Personal Injury Consultation
When you have a personal injury claim, and you’re preparing for your free initial case evaluation with a personal injury attorney, it’s crucial that you bring whatever you can to help your personal injury attorney best understand your claim. This will help your personal injury attorney in assessing your case as accurately as possible. All documents that detail how you’ve been affected financially, physically, and emotionally should be brought to your case evaluation. The more documentation you have, the more accurate your claim can be evaluated. We’ve decided to put together a list of some items you should bring to your free case evaluation.
- Copies of police reports or incident reports connected to your incident
- Copies of records as well as bills from all medical providers that treated your injuries since your accident, including emergency medical services, physicians, and physical therapists
- Documentation from medical providers that detail a diagnosis/prognosis of your injury
- Any information from insurance companies that detail their coverage of your medical bills
- Any information from insurance companies that details a notice of lien(s) (click here to learn about what a lien is in regard to treatment of injury)
- Any documentation of missed work (due to your injury) and the income you’ve lost due to missed work
- A list of important dates, such as your date of injury, dates of surgeries you needed performed, and dates of medical treatment
- If you’ve experienced emotional distress since your incident (click here to learn more about Emotional Distress Claims) and required professional counsel, bring documentation with the names and phone numbers of your therapist or psychiatrist and copies of documents detailing how much they’ve billed you, and dates you were treated
- Copies of any correspondence you’ve had with insurance companies (whether they are your insurance company or the insurance company of the other party involved in your accident)
- Copies of claims that have been filed in connection with your accident (such as the No-Fault application)
- Any photographs you may have taken related to the incident, such as images of the scene, property damage, your injury, and anything that may be relevant to your claim or serve as photographic evidence
- Journal entries describing the emotional and psychological impact your accident, treatment, and the pain you’re enduring from your injury
Your personal injury attorney may not directly ask that you bring these files with you, but it’s still important that you bring them with you. With these types of documents in hand, your personal injury attorney will be able to evaluate how strong your case is and begin assessing the compensation you are (or will be) entitled to.