How Long Does a Personal Injury Case Take?

Critical First Steps: Post-Injury Actions

If you choose to file a personal injury claim later, your actions right after your injuries can have a significant impact on your case’s trajectory.

Seeking Medical Attention

This is the absolute top priority. Seeking medical attention protects your health, and it also allows you to document your injuries.

The extent of the medical attention you receive is a major factor in your case timeline, and so is the time it takes you to reach maximum medical improvement (MMI). We often want to wait for our clients to reach MMI before trying to negotiate compensation.

Once your doctor believes you have reached the point of maximum improvement, any lasting injuries or impairments you still have will be considered permanent. This knowledge enables us to appropriately value your case.

The Importance of a Legal Consultation

As soon as you are reasonably medically stable, you should contact our attorneys for a consultation. This is where the foundation of your case is built. Consulting a lawyer early on offers you a number of advantages:

• They can access traffic camera footage and other evidence.
• They can contact and interview witnesses while their memories are still fresh.
• They will have ample time to develop a legal strategy.

If we take your case, we can also handle all communications with the insurance company. This makes it less likely that you’ll accidentally say something to jeopardize your chances of recovering compensation.

The Nevada Statute of Limitations

Each state is free to set its own personal injury statute of limitations. Nevada statutes (NRS 11.190(4)(e)) state that for a personal injury case, the statute of limitations is generally two years. This means that you typically have two years from the date of your injury to file a personal injury claim.

Understanding and following injury claim deadlines when you’re also trying to heal from a major injury can be extremely stressful. When you work with us, we’ll take care of all legal deadlines and filings so you can focus on getting better.

Phase 1: Investigation and Building Your Case

If you schedule a consultation with us and we take your case, our team will move forward with the next claim process steps. Before we can file a claim on your behalf, we need to investigate your accident and assemble the evidence needed to build your case.

Gathering Evidence

Although personal injury attorneys aren’t police officers, the investigations we conduct aren’t unlike criminal investigations. Our team will typically start by looking for key pieces of evidence like these:

• Police reports or accident reports.
• Copies of your medical bills and medical records.
• Photos and videos of the scene and your injuries.
• Statements from witnesses.
• Pay stubs or other proof of lost income.

If you were able to photograph the accident scene or otherwise gather evidence early on, it can be helpful to us. However, don’t worry if you were unable to collect evidence yourself; many of our clients are too badly injured to document the immediate aftermath.

Identifying Liable Parties

Once we have gathered all necessary evidence, we will analyze your case to identify who was at fault. In order to win your case, we must be able to prove the elements of negligence:

• The at-fault party owed you a duty of care.
• They breached their duty.
• You suffered harm because of their actions.
• You have damages to collect as a result.

Being able to prove the other party was at fault is a key part of your case, but so is assessing your damages to value your case.

Calculating Damages

There are many factors that affect cases in terms of value. We take these factors into account when calculating the compensation you’re entitled to receive. That compensation is referred to as “damages,” and it’s generally divided into two categories:

• Economic damages: Compensate you for medical bills and other monetary losses.
• Non-economic damages: Compensate you for pain and suffering and other non-quantifiable losses.

This part of the injury lawsuit process will usually take a few weeks or months. Valuing your case is one of the most critical claim process steps, and it’s not something we want to rush.

Our Nevada injury law team will closely scrutinize available evidence to calculate the dollar value of your losses. We also maintain a network of experts who can assist us with valuing very complex cases.

Phase 2: The Demand Letter and Negotiations

Some people think that as soon as the evidence-gathering phase is completed, your lawyer will immediately file a lawsuit. However, we will typically start by contacting the insurance company and opening settlement talks.

Drafting the Demand Letter

This formal document is the official start of our settlement negotiations. A demand letter will usually include all of the following:

• A summary of the facts of your accident or injury.
• An explanation of why the at-fault party is liable.
• A detailed, itemized list of your damages.
• A clear settlement demand.

The settlement demand tells the insurance company how much it would need to pay you to cover all of your damages.

The Insurance Company’s Review

Once we’ve sent a demand letter, we can’t expect a reply right away. The insurance company will usually conduct its own investigation. This may take weeks, months, or even longer — the timeline depends on the circumstances of the case.

The Negotiation Process

When it comes to knowing how long to settle personal injury cases, negotiating injury settlements is often the most variable part of the entire process. During settlement negotiations, we attempt to work out a fair settlement offer for you.

This process involves a lot of back-and-forth, and insurance companies often only make very low offers at first. If your case is relatively straightforward and you aren’t seeking a large settlement, this process might take about a month. However, complex cases often go through a year or more of negotiations.

Although you can’t predict how much negotiations will impact your settlement timeframe, Nevada injury lawyers with negotiation experience can often help make this step as efficient as it can be.

Phase 3: Filing a Lawsuit (If Necessary)

If settlement negotiations prove to be unsuccessful, we’ll move to the next step: filing a lawsuit. The vast majority of cases settle, but if yours is one of the few that doesn’t, it may help you to have a quick overview of the personal injury lawsuit process.

Filing the Complaint

This is the formal start of the lawsuit process. The complaint is a document explaining why the at-fault party is being sued. We will file a complaint and serve it to the at-fault party, who must then be given some time to respond.

The Discovery Process

Once the other party responds to the lawsuit, we move on to the discovery phase. This is where both sides gather information and share it with the court and each other. Discovery involves sharing the evidence we’ve already gathered, but we may also need to take new depositions and interview witnesses. This process can be lengthy, especially for factually complex cases. 

Mediation and Arbitration

Sometimes, the court will ask us to attend mediation or arbitration to avoid the time and expense of a trial. Mediation involves sitting down with a trained facilitator who helps guide both parties to a mutual decision.

Arbitration is more formal. In some ways, it’s like a hybrid between mediation and litigation. Arbitration requires both sides to argue their cases before an arbitrator. The arbitrator then issues a binding ruling.

Going to Trial

Many personal injury cases settle even after the lawsuit is filed. However, if we still can’t reach an agreement, the next part of the injury lawsuit process is going to court. A judge (and usually a jury as well) will hear arguments and make a decision.

The trial process can be lengthy. If your case must be decided in court, it can add months or even years to your case timeline.

Factors That Can Delay Your Personal Injury Case 

You already know that there’s no real “average” injury claim length. However, when you understand some of the main reasons for slow settlements, and do what you can to avoid them, you can boost your chances of a quick resolution.

These are some of the most common causes of injury case delays:

• Liability disputes.
• Accidents involving multiple parties.
• Uncooperative insurance adjusters.
• Serious injuries that involve a longer wait for MMI.
• Large settlements.
• Case backlogs in the court system.

Some of these factors are out of your (and our) control. However, because we have extensive experience representing injured people, we can often help keep delays to a minimum.

How Adam S. Kutner Can Help Speed Up Your Case

If you’re wondering how to speed up injury cases, there’s no easy answer. However, our team of Las Vegas personal injury lawyers can streamline each part of the process as much as possible. 

We’re just as comfortable negotiating injury settlements as we are fiercely representing our clients in court, and we know how to efficiently deal with insurance companies.

While we can handle injury claim deadlines, and most of the other logistics of your case, your cooperation makes the process even faster. When you attend all meetings with us and communicate promptly, we can work together to resolve your case expediently.

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