Car Accident Lawyers in Marietta
Most car accident cases are lost in the first three weeks, before anyone talks to a lawyer. A recorded statement gets taken. A gap opens in treatment. A property-damage check gets cashed with language on the back of it. None of that is dramatic and all of it is expensive. We take these cases early, deal with the adjuster ourselves, and build a file that reflects what actually happened to you rather than what fits the insurer's software.
What we do on these cases
- We take over every conversation with the other driver's insurer on the day we open the file, so nobody is asking you to explain your injuries into a recorder before you know what they are.
- We pull the crash report, the scene photographs, any nearby camera footage and the vehicles themselves before repairs start, because a repaired bumper is an argument you can no longer make.
- We map the coverage — the at-fault policy, your own underinsured motorist coverage, any resident-relative policy, and any commercial policy behind the vehicle — before the case gets built around a number that turns out to be a state-minimum limit.
- We keep the medical picture continuous, because a three-week gap in treatment is the single most common reason a real injury gets valued as a soft one.
What the insurer is doing while you wait
The adjuster on the other side is not waiting. Within days of the crash there is a claim file with a reserve on it — an internal estimate of what the case will cost the carrier — and much of what happens afterwards is an effort to keep the eventual payment under that number. The recorded statement, the early authorization to pull ten years of your medical records, the quick property-damage check: none of those are courtesies.
The other thing happening is a read on your lawyer. Carriers track which firms file suit and which ones do not, which ones take depositions and which ones send a demand letter and wait. A firm carrying four hundred open files cannot try any of them, and the evaluation reflects that long before anyone has read your MRI. That is the whole reason we cap what we take on.
What it costs
There is no fee to talk to us and no fee unless we win. Our fee is a percentage of what we recover, agreed in writing before we open a file.
“No fee unless we win” refers only to the attorney's fee — court costs and other expenses of legal action usually must be paid by the client, and contingent fees are not permitted in all types of cases.
Results in this area
- $1.85MTwo-vehicle collision, cervical fusionSettlement · 2023
- $1.25MRear-end collision, shoulder reconstructionSettlement · 2024
- $850,000Sideswipe collision, disputed liabilityVerdict · 2021
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every case is different, and the value of any case depends on facts that are specific to it.
Questions we get about these cases
What if the other driver had no insurance?
Then the case usually turns on coverage you already have. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy, and sometimes on a policy belonging to a relative you live with, can apply even though you were not at fault. Those policies have their own notice requirements and their own deadlines, which is one reason it is worth having someone read the declarations page early rather than after a denial letter arrives.
The adjuster wants a recorded statement — should I give one?
Not before you have talked to a lawyer. You generally do have a duty to cooperate with your own insurer; you have no such duty to the other driver's. The problem is not that people lie in these statements. It is that they are taken in the first week, when the honest answer to "how are you feeling?" is "sore, I think I'm fine" — and that sentence is read back eighteen months later against a surgical recommendation.
My car is totalled. Does that affect my injury claim?
They are separate claims, and the property-damage side usually resolves first. Be careful with what you sign to close it. A release drafted broadly enough to cover the whole loss, rather than just the vehicle, will be argued to have closed the injury claim too. Read the back of the check and the release before either is signed, or let us read them.
I felt fine at the scene and sore two days later. Is that a problem?
It is normal, and it is also the thing the defense will make the most of. Adrenaline masks a great deal, and several common injuries — disc herniation, soft-tissue damage, concussion — are typically worse on day three than on day one. What matters is that the delay is documented rather than explained after the fact. See someone, describe every symptom rather than the worst one, and do not skip the follow-up.
How much is my case worth?
Nobody can answer that from a form, and a firm that gives you a number on a first call is guessing at something it will later have to walk back. The value of an injury claim depends on the medical picture as it finally settles, on the coverage available, on the liability facts, and on the county the case would be tried in. We will tell you honestly what we think a case is worth once we have seen the records — including when we think the honest answer is less than you have been told.
Tell us what happened.
Three steps, about two minutes. A lawyer reads every one of these.