You always have the option of being your own personal injury lawyer in court. You’ll obviously save lots of money in legal fees and costs. However, this article will explain why this is generally not a good idea!

Advantages of being your own personal injury lawyer

You may choose to be your own personal injury lawyer in court mainly because you don’t want to end up paying a fortune in legal fees and costs. Representing yourself in court may actually be more in your favor if your personal injury case is small and the issue being argued is simple. It will be relatively easy to negotiate with the insurance adjuster and defense in that instance.

In fact, most small claims courts require you to be your own personal injury lawyer in Vallejo in instances where the cases are simple, the damages and outcome obvious, and the settlement requested is less than $10,000.

You may not even end up in court. You may have sustained a small fender bender in a car accident with the defendant and have no bodily injuries. In this instance, you don’t need or want to hire a personal injury lawyer because you essentially don’t have a case. All you do is file a claim with the defendant’s insurance company (or with your own if the defendant is uninsured.) you then deal with the insurance adjuster and wait for the settlement check to come in the mail.

The scenario is entirely different if you have a complex personal injury case with a large settlement and lots of property damage/bodily injuries. It would make little sense to be your own lawyer in this case and may even work against you!

The disadvantages of being your own personal injury lawyer

Representing yourself in court makes little legal sense in these instances:
● You’ll be learning the law from scratch – you’ll probably be learning personal injury law from scratch. You may end up making costly and serious mistakes as a result. The courts don’t care. They expect you to be a personal injury law expert when you file a lawsuit through them. Being unfamiliar with even one aspect of personal injury law could cost you your entire settlement!
● Upfront case costs – you’ll be paying for all court costs in advance and out of your own funds. Remember that you may need to have substantial savings to cover for this because court costs can add up quickly.
● You may not know what your case is really worth – you run the risk of accepting a much lower settlement in this instance.
● Navigating through lien laws can be a nightmare – you’ll have to negotiate through healthcare liens with national or major healthcare insurance carriers. If you are not familiar with personal injury law, this can be a nightmare.

It makes sense to represent yourself in court

As has been discussed, it does at times make sense to represent yourself in court in instances where the cases are simple, the settlement values small, and the issues are simple!