You deserve quick justice. The parties opposing you have a right to a full review of the facts. The balance between these two concerns would be a major factor in determining the length of your case.
As explained on FindLaw, these cases take many forms, but have a relatively standard set of stages. Generally, your legal journey starts at the moment you experience a traumatic event and ends the moment that responsible parties pay for your losses.
Early personal injury actions
Your case starts the moment you receive your injury. This event is the source of most of the important facts for your legal arguments. In the early stages, you might proceed as follows:
- Collecting initial facts, such as insurance information or photography in an auto accident.
- Seeking medical attention and obtaining official documentation about the nature of your injury.
- Investigating other parties with possible partial responsibility for your injury, such as equipment manufacturers or hospital administrators.
Legal timelines
Depending on the nature of your injury, you could have some relatively strict deadlines for taking legal action. You would want to look at your unique situation rather early on to determine at which stage you would want to file your suit.
Methods of resolution
One of the most common methods of resolution is settlement. This means you would agree not to go to trial in exchange for the other parties paying you a certain amount with certain terms.
Pretrial motions constitute another way to end a case. Either you or the opposing party would file these documents in an attempt to get the court to decide in your favor.
You might also go to trial. In terms of personal injury, this would be a multi-stage process that allows every party to present arguments and evidence.
Many cases take a year or less to resolve. Your negotiating skills, the strength of your evidence and your knowledge of the personal injury process would all contribute to the speed of your case.
