So I often get asked, do I really need to hire a lawyer if I was involved in a minor car accident in Massachusetts? And I use the word minor kind of scoffingly because in my opinion, you never know what a minor car accident is. So let’s say you’re stopped at a red light and you’re rear-ended and you get out of the car and the damage looks minor and you’re kind of, well, my neck, you know, I’m a little bit sore. I’m not really sure that I’m going to need to hire a lawyer. And so my response to you is number one, you got into an accident. Unless you’re getting accidents all the time, it’s something that’s going to startle you and you’re going to have an adrenaline dump. So that adrenaline dump is going to mask the injuries and the pain for 24, 48, 72 hours. So for at least three days, you might not even realize how sore you are and how stiff you’re going to get. The problem with that is we’ve lost three days of opportunity to do the investigation, find the witnesses, get the videos, identify the skid marks on the ground, because if it’s raining with the rain we get in Massachusetts, that acid rain is going to wash it away. That’s the first problem. The second problem is remember that when we say minor, that vehicle that hit you could weigh 2000 to 6,000 pounds or more. And we’re just talking about a car. So you have a dent in your car, but remember the transfer of energy from a vehicle that weighs say 4,000 pounds, when it hits your car, that energy transfers into you. So what seems minor in the beginning, after eight weeks of physical therapy, you’re not getting any better. And then your doctor says, well, just to be careful, let’s get an MRI. We need to get some objective findings. And so that MRI comes back and lo and behold, you have a herniated disc. So what we thought was going to be a minor injury turns out to be a more serious injury. So the reality is you never know in the beginning of a case if it’s going to be minor or if it’s going to be serious. And I’ve seen the opposite. Cases we thought that were going to be serious, the person ends up having an amazing recovery. Why would we not call a lawyer in the beginning? My advice is you call us day one, we start the investigation, we document everything, and we make sure we’re taking care of your needs. And remember, in the end, if you don’t need us, if you don’t have a case, or if for some reason you didn’t win, you owe me nothing. You only pay us when you win.
