Las Animas, CO Personal Injury Law Firms & Lawyers

I cannot give individual advice to you because you probably already have an attorney. I can discuss this issue in general. The short answer for a Plaintiff wanting to settle quickly is to settle for less that the case may ultimately be worth. An insurance adjuster will usually offer some money early on, but it is usually a lot less than most plaintiffs will settle for. Several things must happen before you can obtain a fair settlement. First, you must reach maximum medical improvement, meaning your injury is stable, and you will get no better. Often this is when you are "released" from your doctor's care. It is really premature to even begin negotiating if the doctor is still treating you, unless the doctor is treating you after you have reached MMI. After you have reached MMI, the attorney must get all of your medical records and bills and either put together a demand package for the adjuster, or file suit. This can often take several months if the medical treatment is complicated, because it takes to five seeks to get medical records from most doctors, and with some you have to request the records twice, causing it to take a couple of months. Sometimes, after getting all of the records, you discover you failed to request records from a medical provider. This is because the client didn't tell you about this provider (often because the client didn't know the provider, such as a pathologist, radiologist, or anesthesiologist, had his own separate records and bills. The attorney notices this when he reviews the records and sees a reference to this other medical provider. Once the attorney submits the package to the adjuster, it often takes one to three months for the adjuster to respond. Some attorneys skip this step and just file suit. Because of all of the steps described above, it is often a year to three years after the accident that suit is filed (keep in mind, it often takes over a year to reach MMI). Once you file suit it takes 30 to 60 days for the Defendant to file an answer. Usually, no offers are made until discovery (answers to written interrogatories, production of documents and tangible evidence, and depositions) is substantially complete. Discovery often goes on for 3 to 8 months. The bottom line is, it is difficult to settle any significant case inside a year, from one to two years is probably normal, and it can easily stretch out for over three years if you have to go to trial. At any point along the way, you can accept what they are offering.