Your Personal Injury Lawyer in Converse

You might think that a “personal” injury is any injury that happens to you, injuring you personally. But the term is largely a legal one. It refers to any accident caused by another’s negligence or recklessness.

To illustrate, let’s consider some different types of injuries:

• A neck or spinal cord injury
• Burns
• Broken bones
• Sprained limb
• Head trauma.

These injuries can all be personal injuries depending on how they happened and — importantly — who is responsible for them.

If you sustain finger burns because you forgot to turn off your flat iron and carelessly picked it up by the metal plates instead of the handle, you have suffered a painful injury, but it’s unlikely to meet the legal criteria of a personal injury.

However, it’s a different story if you sustain burns because your flat iron overheats due to a product defect.

Other examples of personal injuries include:

• Suffering a spinal cord injury after tripping over a pallet carelessly left in a supermarket aisle.
• Sustaining whiplash when a driver with road rage intentionally crashed into you.
• Having a piece of gauze left in your body by a doctor during surgery.
• Suffering road rash in a motorcycle accident when a speeding driver rear-ends your vehicle.
• Suffering post-traumatic stress disorder after losing a limb in a work accident.

What defines these scenarios as personal injuries is the role of another person or party (such as a company) in contributing to the accident. The critical question to ask is, “But for another person’s or party’s actions (or inaction), would I have sustained the injury?” If the answer is no, you stand a good chance of being eligible to pursue compensation in a personal injury claim.

It is your right to file an independent insurance claim after your accident. However, navigating the process on your own can be challenging and impact the outcome of your claim — including how much compensation you receive — so having a skilled personal injury lawyer in Converse on your side has many benefits. 

Our understanding of the intricacies of Texas law allows us to explore all avenues of recovery and highlight additional damages you are entitled to that you may not be aware of.

The main reason for filing a personal injury claim without the support of a Converse personal injury attorney is to avoid paying legal fees. However, an experienced lawyer can often negotiate a better settlement, leaving you with a higher payout after deducting your fee.

If there is a single reason to hire an attorney to handle your personal injury claim, it is to lighten the burden. Your focus should be on your health and recovery — not on tracking down witnesses, filing paperwork, and fielding calls from insurance adjusters requesting updates about your injuries and treatment so they can twist your statements, shift the blame, and reduce your settlement offer.

When you choose our Converse personal injury law firm, we will handle all communications with insurers and build a case that yields maximum compensation while updating you on progress at each stage.

Two individuals injured in the same accident can sustain wildly different injuries. One may recover in weeks, but the other might need ongoing treatment and suffer long-term or permanent pain.

It is unrealistic and unhelpful to offer a monetary figure illustrating the value of a Converse personal injury lawsuit.

How much you might receive in a lawsuit depends on various factors. That said, it can be helpful to understand what these factors are and the damages you are entitled to recover.

A personal injury lawsuit award typically considers the following:

• Your injuries: The physical injuries you have sustained and their severity, including how they impact you daily and how they will affect you long-term.
• Your medical expenses: The cost of surgery, scans, medication, hospitalization, rehabilitation, and other treatment related to the injuries sustained in your Converse accident.
• Your lost wages: The income you have lost from being unable to work due to your injuries. You can also recover compensation for diminished earning capacity if you cannot work again or must seek alternative employment because you can no longer perform your job role.
• Property damage: The cost of repairing your property, such as your vehicle in a car accident, or its value if it has been destroyed and needs replacing.
• Pain and suffering: Your physical and emotional pain, mental anguish, and loss of enjoyment of life you have endured due to your accident. Compensation for pain and suffering is harder to quantify but can be substantial.
• Comparative fault: How responsible you are for the accident that caused your injuries, represented as a percentage. Texas has a modified comparative negligence law, meaning you cannot recover compensation if you are more than 50% responsible for your accident. If your liability is below this threshold, your award is reduced based on your level of fault.
• Defendant conduct: Juries can award additional compensation — punitive damages — when a defendant acted heinously. Punitive damages are separate from your losses and punish the defendant for their behavior.

As you can see, determining the value of a personal injury lawsuit is complex. You can use a personal injury award calculator to total your losses and gauge how much you might receive. However, a Converse personal injury attorney can provide a more accurate figure based on your situation.

When a Google search for a personal injury lawyer in Converse, Texas, returns over five million results, finding the best personal injury lawyer for you can seem daunting. You might investigate several firms, but what should you look for to ensure you make the right decision and select a firm you can trust — rather than one that will push for a rapid settlement so it can take its cut and move on?

Online legal directories are helpful and may offer more information about each firm, including client testimonials, peer reviews, and specialist practice areas. But some — including Top Attorneys of North America and the American Institute of Trial Lawyers (AIOTL) — carry more authority due to their rigorous qualification criteria for listing attorneys.

Patino Law Firm is recognized by AIOTL and Top Attorneys, indicating that we are a trusted Converse personal injury firm for individuals injured in accidents and have a track record of success in our field.

It is also wise to seek testimonials and reviews from previous clients. Be cautious of generic or copied-and-pasted testimonials that lack credibility. Instead, look to social media and authoritative third-party review websites such as Google for reliable and unbiased feedback from previous clients about their dealings with a specific firm or attorney.

Many Converse law firms offer free consultations. These conversations allow you to determine if an attorney is a good fit and learn more about their process, including how they will update you on your case and who you will primarily be in contact with. There is no right or wrong answer here — only what works for you.

For example, we pride ourselves on offering a personal touch. We are a small, close-knit team that works one-on-one with clients — not via a string of gatekeepers who prevent clients from ever speaking to the attorney handling their claims.

When you choose our personal injury lawyers in Converse, we will always be available to discuss your case and strive to create a supportive and comfortable environment as you navigate the legal process.