Should You Handle Your Personal Injury Case On Your Own?

For the most part, a straightforeward personal injury case can be handled on your own without a lawyer. Here we take a quick look at the kinds of cases you should be able to handle with ease. We'll also discuss why it's often okay to handle more complicated personal injury cases alone.

As we've already noted, there's more than one kind of personal injury case. There are those that are very straightforward and those that are incredibly complex. Sometimes a personal injury case is resolved with a nicely written demand letter. Other times it requires gathering and presenting evidence - along with a lot of back and forth communication with the insurance company.

If you are willing to invest the time and effort, there is really no reason why you can’t handle even a more complicated personal injury case by yourself. While a civil litigation lawyer will have more knowledge they can apply to the subtle aspects of your case, this usually isn’t something you need.

Is Handling Your Own Personal Injury Case A Big Hassle?

Despite the bad reputation of insurance companies, if there is clear fault and properly documented expenses resulting from your injury, there won’t be a lot of hassle in getting a personal injury settlement; it’s just a matter of agreeing on the final figures.

Even when great legal experience can increase your settlement amount, it still might be worth it to handle your personal injury case yourself. This is something that ultimately comes down to math. We’ll take a closer look at this later, just keep in mind that a lawyer will take a percentage of your claim for themselves.

If the lawyer can get you 10% more but is going to take a 40% cut, then it's clearly not worth it. Aside from that, it's important to realize that the amount of compensation awarded in a personal injury case comes from a structured though somewhat flexible formula. In almost all cases, the monetary figure arrived at comes from very transparent sources - meaning you don’t need a lawyer or industry insider to tell you how much you can expect from your claim.

Generally speaking then, the types of personal injury cases you can handle on your own are the ones that are most common and the ones that don’t require much more than basic legal knowledge.

These include:

1) Car Accidents - regardless of whether you're the driver or passenger and despite whether the claim is against someone else’s insurance policy or your own.

2) In a similar vein, you can handle claims when you are a cyclist or pedestrian or even on public transportation.

3) Slip and fall accidents on any kind of property, whether it be private, public or commercial.

4) Home accidents involving defective products.

5) Injuries caused by an animal attack.


Saying this, you should keep in mind that your decision to handle a personal injury case on your own does not have to be a final decision. If things become too difficult then you can go to a lawyer at any time before a final settlement is agreed upon.

You can also find a lawyer who will charge you an hourly rate for basic consulting and still handle the main personal injury case alone.


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