Category Archives: Life

Health, Life, Tips

Personal Injury Cases: Should You Settle?

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Accidents and injuries can happen in the blink of an eye. When you or a loved one suffers a personal injury, it can cause emotional distress and financial hardship. In such difficult situations, the guidance of an experienced personal injury lawyer in Provo, Utah, can be of great assistance.

One of the biggest decisions you must make after sustaining a personal injury is settling your case or going to trial. This blog post will consider the advantages and disadvantages of both options to help you determine the best course of action for your circumstances.

Settling Your Personal Injury Case

Settlement is often the preferred option for many personal injury victims. There are several reasons why settling your case might be the right choice for you:

1. Faster Resolution

Personal injury cases can sometimes take several years to resolve in court. By settling, you may receive compensation much sooner, which can help cover lost wages and other expenses, including medical bills.

2. Less Stressful

Going to court can be a stressful experience for anyone, especially those recovering from a personal injury. Settling your case allows you to avoid the emotional strain of a trial while still receiving compensation for your injuries.

3. More Predictable Outcome

When your case goes to trial, there is always uncertainty regarding the outcome. By settling out of court, you have more control over the compensation you will receive.

4. Lower Legal Fees

Trials are more expensive than settlements, as they involve more preparation, investigation, and negotiation by your attorney. Settling can save you money on legal fees and ensure that more of your compensation goes directly toward your recovery.

However, there are some circumstances where settling may not be in your best interest:

1. Unfair Compensation

If the settlement amount offered by the insurance company falls short of your medical expenses, lost earnings, and other injury-related losses, you should consider going to trial with the support of an attorney from Killian, Davis, Richter, & Fredenburg, PC, or another law firm of similar caliber in your local area.

2. Need for Closure

Some personal injury victims may feel that a trial is necessary to achieve a sense of closure or justice after their accident.

Going to Trial for Your Personal Injury Case

While both parties often prefer settling, going to trial may be the best option in certain situations. Some reasons to consider going to trial include:

1. Maximum Compensation

If the insurance company’s settlement offer is too low, taking your case to court with the help of an expert personal injury lawyer like michael valen can help you obtain more significant compensation. Juries tend to award larger amounts than what is offered during settlement negotiations.

2. Holding the At-Fault Party Accountable

Going to trial allows you to hold the responsible party accountable for their actions in a public forum.

3. Appeals Process

If the outcome of your trial is not satisfactory or there are legal errors made during the proceedings, you can appeal the decision. This could result in a more favorable outcome for your case.

However, going to trial also means facing certain risks and challenges:

1. Time-Consuming

Trials can be lengthy, which means extended periods of stress, uncertainty, and financial strain while waiting for the outcome.

2. No Guaranteed Outcome

As previously mentioned, there is an element of unpredictability when dealing with a jury trial. There is never a guarantee that a jury will rule in your favor or award you proper compensation for your losses.

Ultimately, deciding whether or not to settle your personal injury case is a deeply personal decision that should not be taken lightly. Consult with your attorney and carefully weigh the pros and cons based on your situation.

Life, Tips

5 Signs Of A Trustworthy Lawyer

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When hiring a lawyer to defend you, it’s essential that you hire a lawyer that you can trust. But just how do you tell if a lawyer is trustworthy? Below are a few good signs.

Strong web presence

Every law firm and independent lawyer should have their own website. This should be a high quality website with images of the person who will be representing you and plenty of information on their services. You should be able to find them on search engines and there shouldn’t be any negative press surrounding them. If there is no trace of a lawyer or law firm online, this is a bad sign and you should avoid working with them.

Positive reviews

It’s always worth checking out reviews left by previous clients. You can find online reviews for law firms on Google and on sites like Trustpilot. Sites like Avvo are meanwhile dedicated to reviews of legal services and are a good place to look for reviews. Check that reviews are mostly positive and these positive reviews are fairly recent. If a lawyer has no reviews, you should be wary of trusting them. 

Reasonable fees

When looking for a lawyer, make sure to research fees. A good lawyer won’t try to rip you off with hidden fees and will be upfront about all costs. The best lawyers may not even charge you if they lose. This no win no fee policy could be a good reason why to choose GED lawyers as your personal injury law firm. You can find other lawyers with similar policies online. Approach different lawyers to get a variety of quotes. Be wary of suspiciously low fees, as it could mean that they’re compensating for a bad reputation. 

Good communication

When initially working with a lawyer, you should consider how easy it is to communicate with them. Whether you’re seeking a California Car Repossession attorney (or elsewhere) for vehicle-related legal matters or consulting with a family law specialist about divorce proceedings, the best lawyers will constantly keep you in the loop with emails or phone calls. If you have to chase up a lawyer to find out what’s going on, this may not be a good sign. Immigration attorneys and personal injury lawyers should be equally responsive to their clients. You also need to be cautious about continuing to work with lawyers who take ages to reply to emails or take ages to return calls. Making contact with a lawyer shouldn’t be a struggle – although it’s good for a lawyer to be busy, they should still have time to talk to you even if it means that they have to arrange a phone call.

Cautious optimism

It’s important to hire a lawyer who is optimistic about being able to win your case. However, they shouldn’t be promising you the world just to get you on their side. Even lawyers with the best track records can never be certain that they will win a case or that they will be able to win you a certain amount of money – there is always a risk of surprise developments. You should be more trusting of phrases like ‘there’s a strong chance we’ll win your case’ rather than ‘I will win your case’.

Going Healthy, Health, Life

Things You Didn’t Know Could Affect Your Hearing

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One of the senses that you don’t realize you need is your hearing – and you don’t appreciate it until you really need it and usually, this is after you notice that it’s going! Did you know that hearing loss is actually one of the most common medical issues affecting people in the US? The thing is, hearing loss isn’t always something you can just fix with hearing aids, nor is it something that everyone can fix at all.

Because there is such a variation in hearing loss, it’s tough to pinpoint what will necessarily help. Hearing loss isn’t just caused by aging, nor is it only caused by a prolonged exposure to noise. When you choose the right hearing specialist, you can get your hearing properly tested and then get the support that you need most. Hearing loss happens for many different reasons, and understanding the different types of hearing losses will help you to understand what started your hearing loss in the first place. Let’s take a look at some of the things you may not have even known could affect your hearing!

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  1. Infections. Did you know that both bacterial and viral infections can affect your hearing? Something as simple as a cold gone awry can muffle and impair your hearing, affect your balance and result in things like tinnitus. The good news with this one is that a cold affecting your hearing is usually only temporary. You won’t have to worry about it long-term and the sooner you seek out new treatment, the better. Hearing loss that remains permanent comes from illnesses such as meningitis and brain inflammation.
  2. Trauma. Have you bashed your head recently and noticed muffled hearing? Head trauma can damage the internal structures of the ears, and so can foreign objects in the ears. If you have had a trauma to the inner ear or the head, you could have damaged the ear canal or the eardrum of that ear. You’ll find that your auditory signals are completely interrupted when this happens and if you have noticed hearing loss as a result of a head trauma, it’s important to speak to a doctor as soon as you can.
  3. Your teeth. You wouldn’t think that a problem with your teeth will connect to hearing issues. The thing is, they’re more related than you’d imagine they are. Infections in the mouth and the teeth can compromise your hearing because of the inflammation that they cause further issues. Inflammation narrows the blood vessels and this pulls the blood flow away from the cells in the inner ear. Your dentist can help you with this, ensuring that your teeth are in the best condition possible so that your hearing isn’t compromised as a result.
  4. Diabetes. If you are dealing with other medical issues outside of your hearing loss, these could be a main contributor! You’re twice as likely to develop hearing loss if you have diabetes due to the deterioration in the ear’s nerve cells. This goes back to the fact that high sugar levels can cause damage and as it’s something that happens over time, it may not even be something you’d notice until it creeps up on you.
  5. You have higher blood pressure. You’re not alone in this but high blood pressure can lead to hearing loss and you wouldn’t even know it most of the time. It’s a particularly rare side effect and as blood flow has to be established for healthy living, you can bet that it’ll also be the case for healthy hearing. Speak to an audiologist when you can so that you can get a handle on the cause of high blood pressure.
  6. You’re on prescription medications. The one thing that you want to find out with any medication you’re supposed to take is the medication side effects. You need to know if the medications taken to improve and help your wellbeing are going to cause other issues or not. If so, you can speak to your doctor about changing the medicine. There are more than 200 different medicines out there that can cause hearing damage as a side effect. 

All of these things can affect your hearing and if you didn’t know about them before you surely do now. Your hearing is something that needs to be protected and the best way to do that is to speak to your doctor. Get a hearing test if you notice any changes and talk to them about any existing medicines that you may be taking. It’s all important if you want to keep your hearing consistent.