Hiring a lawyer, or handling it yourself
Plenty of injury claims do not need a lawyer, and a firm that tells you otherwise is not being straight with you. Here is how to work out which kind yours is.
When you probably do not need one
- Property damage only. No injury at all. Deal with it directly; there is nothing a contingency fee can usefully add.
- A genuinely minor injury that fully resolved. A few physiotherapy sessions, back to normal in three weeks, modest bills, liability admitted. A fee on that recovery may leave you with less than handling it yourself.
- Clear liability, tiny damages, cooperative insurer. Where the arithmetic is simple and nobody is disputing anything.
When you almost certainly do
- Any surgery, or a recommendation for one.
- Any fracture, disc injury, head injury or injury that is still symptomatic after a few months.
- Liability is disputed or you are being blamed in whole or in part.
- A government entity is involved — the deadline is six months and the procedure is unforgiving.
- A commercial vehicle, a truck, or a driver who was working. Multiple parties, bigger policies, evidence on a retention clock.
- The insurance may not be enough, which means a search for other coverage.
- You are being asked for a recorded statement or a blanket medical authorization.
- A child is the injured person, or someone who cannot make their own decisions.
- Anything catastrophic or fatal.
The honest arithmetic
A contingency fee is a real cost — a meaningful percentage of the recovery, plus case costs. The question is not whether the fee is large; it is whether the net to you is larger with representation than without.
Unrepresented claimants are generally offered less, which is simply how the market works rather than a conspiracy: an adjuster knows an unrepresented person cannot easily assess whether an offer is fair, is unlikely to file suit, and often needs money sooner. Set against that, on a very small claim the fee can exceed the difference.
Two things an unrepresented person systematically loses, beyond the headline number: future medical costs, which they almost never claim because nobody told them they could, and lien reductions, which routinely put real money back in a client's pocket at the end. See medical liens.
Questions people ask
Will you tell me if I do not need a lawyer?
Yes. If your claim is small, liability is clear and you have fully recovered, we will say so and explain how to handle it yourself. Signing up a claim that does not need us helps nobody and is how firms end up with the complaints described all over the review sites.
Is it too late to get a lawyer if I already started negotiating?
Usually not, as long as you have not signed a release. Once you sign, it is generally over. If you have been negotiating and it has stalled, or an offer has arrived that you cannot evaluate, that is a sensible moment to get a second opinion.
Related
Reviewed October 2026 by Simon Aziz Budhwani, Esq., the attorney responsible for this site. Legal statements here name the California code section they rely on, so you can check them rather than trust them. This is information about the law in general, not advice about your situation.
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