Finding the Best Vancouver Car Accident and Personal Injury Lawyers
Why are Car Accident and Personal Injury Lawyers Important in Vancouver?
One of the challenges of our development and continued improvement as a people is the danger that has accompanied some of these advances we have made and do celebrate. The accidents we experience today are unparalleled in the history of mankind.
During the French revolution, we heard that one of the actual events that sparked off the revolt was a noble who rode over a small child while speeding through the streets in carriage. This combined with the already pent up anger that had been building up to cause the explosion we now read of today.
If indeed this story is true, can you compare it to the many crashes and deaths that have been the results of reckless driving, texting and driving or driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs as experienced today?
According to ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia), about 350,000 car crashes were recorded in 2017 in BC alone. This amounted to about 960 daily crashes. You can read about it here.
Looking at the reasons for these crashes, bad driving appears to top the list. In fact, they conducted a poll in which as much as 75 percent of drivers owned up to being guilty of bad driving.
With almost 2 million cars plying the lower mainland roads every day, coupled with the reckless driving of many drivers, the risk of car accidents occurring is actually much higher now than it previously was.
To this end, every road user MUST be extra careful. Sadly, regardless of how careful one is, there are times when some other person’s carelessness may make nonsense of your care. At such times, it is important to ensure that the guilty individual is made to bear the full cost (or at least as much as possible) of the consequences of their carelessness. These are the times when the assistance of a car accident and personal injury lawyer is needed.
Note that the scenario is not restricted to injuries resulting from car accidents alone. Every injury or loss resulting from the negligence of another is included in this list.
Filing for Compensation
There are two ways to go about filing for claims to compensate one for whatever loses they might have incurred as a result of the accident. We will look at the two options briefly.
Before we do, it is important to understand that the accident MUST be the fault of the other party and not yours. This point will have to be proven before any of the two options can be filed.
Filing for Claims
This method involves filing a claim with the “at-fault” party’s insurance company. All your negotiations will be done with the company on behalf of the at-fault party until a mutually acceptable resolution is reached.
Filing a Lawsuit
In this approach, rather than file a claim with the insurance company, you sue the at-fault party. This could be through the insurance company. Rather than seeking to negotiate with the insurance company for a claim, you request a court of competent jurisdiction to adjudicate on the matter and decide on a sum that suitably compensates you for whatever losses you may have incurred as a result of the accident.
You can read more about this here: https://obj.ca/article/how-personal-injury-claim-different-personal-injury-lawsuit.
So which option is better or is there any particular situation where one option will be better than the other? This question is very important and again reveals the importance finding a suitable personal injury lawyer.
How to Find the Best in Vancouver
It should now be pretty obvious that one of the most important steps you need to take towards securing a worthy compensation for your loss or that of a loved one is to engage the expertise of a personal injury lawyer. To this end, we will briefly look at a few ways to go about it.
Ask for Referrals
Asking for referrals is a good way to start. You can ask your family members or friends if they know or have had any experiences with a good accident and personal injury lawyer. If they do, it could save you a lot of time.
Search Online
A “near me” search online is also a good way to find such lawyers. Simply using a search phrase such as “personal injury lawyers in Vancouver” will bring up a number of firms. It’s now up to you to check through them and then make a decision of which company to go with.
Check for Reviews
Following from the point above, after doing an online search and finding a couple of firms, the next thing you should do is read the reviews of previous clients. Let’s say you saw and liked a firm like Tim Louis & Company Law, the first thing you will see under the firm’s name is website, direction and save. Below this, you will see the reviews from previous clients.
In this case, this firm as at the time of writing this had about 52 reviews and a rating of 4.8 stars of a possible 5 stars. This already tells you that these 52 previous clients were very pleased with their experience with the firm.
Take some time to check this as it is a very important process. Based on your conclusion from the reviews from past clients, you can then make an informed decision.
Experience and Win Rate
You may also want find out how much experience they have and what their win rate has been. Obviously, you want a company with good experience and a high win rate.
Conclusion
Working with an experienced lawyer will help you know how best to approach your claims. The goal is to get as much compensation as possible and this is exactly what the right car accident and personal injury lawyer will help you get.