General Information About Personal Injury Lawyers

In today’s world accidents are commonplace. When the victim is also the person at fault, then it would seem that a natural sort of balance has occurred. Yet what can be done when the victim is not the one at fault? Injuries, both physical and mental, can be quite devastating to one’s work, social and private life. These problematic situations are the precise reason that personal injury lawyers have a profession.

A Los Angeles lawyer who handles personal injury cases will represent a person who has been harmed due to direct action or negligence of another person, company, government agency or other entity. While a personal injury lawyer is educated and licensed to work in any field of law, due to the specific nature of the personal injuries they are particularly versed in an area of law called tort.

In order to receive compensation for a personal injury, tort law requires four elements to be apparent in the case.

1. The existence of a legal duty owed by a person to others.
(E.g., when driving a car it is one’s legal duty not to hit any pedestrians with said car.)

2. The breach of duty by one person.
(Said person hit’s a pedestrian with said car.)

3. The breach of duty being the approximate cause of damages suffered by a person.
(It must be the fault of the driver and not the pedestrian.)

4. Damages incurred by a person.
(The pedestrian now has a broken leg.)

All four of these elements must be present in the case, but there are obviously many variations of them besides the example provided.

Depending on the personal injury lawyer hired or the firm from which they are a part of, the method of payment can be a couple of different procedures. As with any other legal representation there could be contingency, hourly rates, flat fees or retainers. A contingency fee is a payment that is only due if the outcome is positive (I.e. you win the case). A retainer fee is similar to a down payment, and is done simply to ensure the lawyer will officially be representing the client.

Los Angeles lawyers who specifically handle personal injury cases are very common in modern day, with a large selection to choose from. So if you or someone you care about has had an occurrence that coincides with those four tort elements, go ahead and get some representation and hopefully you can get some compensation!