If you are looking for a personal injury lawyer, you have come to the right place. Our website can answer many questions, but we also invite you to give us a call to talk about your case and our criteria for handling it. We cannot help everyone, but if our law firm takes your case for personal injury, we will fully commit to you.
Can our Schaumburg & Elgin Personal Injury firm take your case?
We get many phone calls from people who have been involved in an accident. Callers are looking for a law firm to handle their case, wondering how we can help. Many want to know if they even have a case for personal injury. Every accident is different. Every law firm is different. Some law firms will be the right fit for you and some will not.
We are located on McLean Blvd. in Elgin IL and in downtown Schaumburg. While we serve Kane, DuPage and Cook Counties, we may also help those in other northern Illinois counties. If you live in or the accident was in the Chicagoland area, we can probably help you. In some circumstances, we might be able to help you if you were in downstate Illinois (or we can help you find the right lawyer further from our office).
Generally, we handle these cases at our law firm:
- Car Accidents
- Hit and Run accidents
- Distracted Driving Accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Bike accidents
- Slip and Fall cases, in limited circumstances
- Wrongful death cases
- Accidents involving Uber of Lyft, in some circumstances
These factors may determine if we can take your injury case:
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Were you injured?
We get calls from people all of the time who, fortunately, were not hurt in the accident. They are simply looking for help in dealing with the insurance companies so that they can get their car fixed. We focus solely on injury and do not handle car accident cases that involve property damage only.
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What kind of injury did you have?
Not all injuries require legal help, even if the accident was not your fault. We often decline cases if we do not think that we can add any value to your case, as we only accept clients who in good conscience, we believe that we can help (we will be very honest about this). Since we are a small law firm, we cannot help everyone who comes to us, even if you have “a good case”. If your injuries healed quickly without much more than one medical visit, it might not make sense to hire a lawyer. If your doctors really cannot say if your injury was caused by the accident or you are not sure of it yourself, we may have a hard time obtaining any money for you.
Often, it will take some time to determine if your injuries warrant hiring a law firm. This is especially true if you call within just a few hours of having been in a car accident. Feel free to call, as we are always happy to talk about when might be the best time for you to consider legal representation.
If we cannot help you, we will always suggest that you speak to a few other lawyers since their firm might be exactly the right fit for you.
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Did you receive medical care?
Sometimes people are hurt in car accidents but did not need to go to the doctor. Some people only had one visit to a hospital or doctor. That is perfectly okay when it means that your body does not need any more care, or that you can heal on your own pretty quickly. Depending on what was done for you or the extent of your medical treatment, we might not be able to help you too much. Help paying for medical bills is one of the main reasons people start a case for personal injury. Another big component is pain and suffering, and if you did not have much pain for very long, there might be simpler options for you that do not involve hiring a lawyer. Hiring a lawyer is a big commitment for you and for your lawyer. We want to make sure that we are truly able to help you in a way that can not be easily accomplished on your own.
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Did you wait a long time to go to the doctor?
It is natural that when someone is injured or sick, they will wait to see if they get better on their own before going to a doctor. But, if you waited too long to go, we might not be able to take your case. It is much harder to prove that your medical care was related to the accident and not to something else if you do not seek treatment right away for your injuries. That being said, there are many reasons for gaps in treatment. Whether or not we can help you with a gap in medical treatment will depend on the circumstances, including how long you waited to be seen and whether or not you went to the emergency room at the very beginning. Let’s talk.
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Was the accident not your fault?
Fault can be hard to define. This is one of the reasons that we have judges and juries. Most accidents happen in a split second and it is hard to always piece together how it happened. This is especially true in multi-car crashes. How is fault determined in an accident? While the answer can be complicated, many people have a good idea about who was to blame. If you are not sure, it is a good idea to talk to a lawyer who can ask you the right questions or look at photos and other documents to help you try to understand how fault might be viewed in the accident. However, if you know that the accident was your fault, you will have a very hard time winning a case against someone else. There are certain things that must be proven in every case for personal injury, the first of these being fault. Done correctly, personal injury cases require a lot of work, so we only take on cases that we are pretty confident that we can win (either by settlement or at trial). If proving fault is going to be an uphill battle, we will not be able to help you.
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Did the accident happen in the State of Illinois?
We are an Illinois law firm. This not only means that our Schaumburg and Elgin offices are located in Illinois, but this is where we are licensed to practice law. To qualify for legal representation from our firm, the accident needs to have happened inside of Illinois. This is true even if you are not an Illinois resident. If your accident happened in another state, please call the office anyway, as we know many personal injury lawyers who work in other states. The chances are good that we can make a recommendation to a lawyer that we know and trust, out of state.
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We must check for Conflicts of Interest.
We will have to do what is called a conflict check to make sure that we can legally proceed against the other party. There might be other reasons that we cannot disclose, about why we cannot take your case. Often, this would have nothing to do with you or with the facts of your accident, but is something on our end that would make it impossible to represent you. For example, if you fell down in a place where my spouse works, it would be unethical for me to take your case. Or, maybe the person driving the car who hit you is someone that I know or have represented in the past. In all cases, we will check for a conflict of interest before representation begins.
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Time Constraints, Insurance Issues, etc.
Sometimes, we will have to decline your case for any other number of reasons. This does not necessarily mean that you do not have a case. Sometimes, we are just too busy and are not handling new business. We want to make sure that everyone gets the attention that they deserve. We must also look into insurance. If you were injured by someone who did not have car insurance, and the car that you were in was not protected with underinsured coverage, you might be short on legal options. Please do not take it personally if we cannot help you. But always feel free to call!
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Work Injuries, Medical Malpractice, etc.
We are not a medical malpractice firm but if you were injured by a doctor or hospital, we can put you in touch with who we believe to be some excellent attorneys who handle medical malpractice cases.
We do not handle worker’s compensation cases but if you were hurt at work, you might also have a personal injury case. This would be separate from a worker’s compensation case. For example, if you were driving for work and someone rear ended you, you could potentially have two cases. You could have a worker’s compensation case and also a case for personal injury against the other driver. We can explain to you how it works if this situation sounds familiar.
Next Steps when looking for help with Personal Injury
If you believe that you might have a case for personal injury in the Chicago area, please give us a call. We will be happy to discuss the details of what happened with you. We can then evaluate your case for you by letting you know your options. It is very important that you speak to a lawyer before you speak to the insurance company for the responsible party. They are not there to help you. We are. We would be delighted to speak to you about your accident. All that you need to do is call our Elgin or Schaumburg law firm at 630- 250-8813 (Elgin) or 847 631-6125 (Schaumburg).