If you’ve just been injured on the job and weighing why you may even need an attorney, let me explain to you why it is in your best interest to hire me.
Do I Need a Lawyer for a Workers’ Comp Claim?
First of all, understand that this is a process where your life is thrown in disarray. You may need medical care and you may need to get paid work comp checks while you are unable to work. These are things in the control of one person who will have a profound effect on your life for the upcoming months -the insurance company adjuster.
This person who has never met you or even heard of you before your injury, will now be making major decisions about your life for months to come. She will decide what doctors you will see. She will decide what procedures she will authorize (or deny!) and she will decide if, when and how much you are to get paid. Or she may decide not to pay you! Your only contact with her will be by the phone. You will be at her mercy to decide if she wants to take your call or ever bother to return your call. And keep in mind, she has many, many other cases, just like yours so consider yourself lucky if you do get through to her. So what can you do if she doesn’t want to authorize that therapy your doctor says you need? What can you do if your check doesn’t come and you keep leaving messages for her?
What Does a Workers’ Comp Attorney Do?
That’s where I come in. They can ignore your many phone calls, but they can’t ignore me. When you hire me to represent you, I aggressively pursue your case.
Filing a Petition for Benefits
I will file what’s called a Petition for Benefits, which is a legal document they are obligated to respond to within 30 days of receipt. If they fail to respond to it, they may have to pay an attorney’s fee as a penalty. What’s more is I have at my disposal, the ability to take an adjuster’s deposition. A deposition is like a statement under oath where the adjuster has to answer my questions to her like, “why aren’t you paying my client’s lost wages?” or “why haven’t you authorized my client’s surgery?” Believe me, they hate to be deposed and a lot of times they will cave on an issue just to avoid having their depositions taken!
Going to Court
Furthermore, by filing a Petition for Benefits, I know that eventually, even if the insurance company persists in not complying, we will eventually get a court date and go before the Judge of Compensation Claims to get what you are entitled to.
Protecting Your Rights as an Employee
Probably the biggest hesitation most people feel in contacting an attorney is the fear that they will be fired or at the very least harassed by their employer. You should know that it is against the law for your job to fire or even just harass you just because you hire an attorney to help pursue your workers’ comp benefits. They can face a separate lawsuit just for doing that.
Contact Us Today!
At the Law Offices of Adam Baron, with offices in Miami, Naples, Ft. Myers and Coral Springs, I will aggressively pursue your worker’s compensation claim and get you all the benefits you are entitled to under the law. Don’t hesitate to call me; even if your case has gone on for awhile without an attorney, it’s not too late to get me in your corner!