Personal injury lawyers are great in helping you win your personal injury case in court. If you hire a lawyer (and you should) after your personal injury accident, he or she will tell you the following:

Where you can file your personal injury lawsuit

Your lawyer will inform you that you’ll have two options in terms of a place where you can file your personal injury lawsuit.

● Small claims court – you file here if your possible settlement value is small. In most states, it must be between $3,000 and $15,000. You can file cases with lower settlement amounts here too. These courts are preferred because of their informal nature. This allows verdicts to be reached much faster than in a traditional court. You’ll probably only go to court once before you get your settlement.
● Civil court – you’ll file here if your settlement value is $20,000. You and your lawyer will begin the lawsuit by filing a personal injury complaint with the court.

Jurisdiction and venue:

You need to find the court with the ability and authority to hear your case. This court must have a judge who can legally arrive at a verdict on your case as well. It must also be close to you – this is referred to as being in the right venue.

Initial documents

You’ll work with your personal injury lawyer in St John’s to craft the documents that will help you win your case in court. You’ll need to pay attention to the details in terms of the types of information that you need to include. A vital piece of information to include is a statement that describes and summarizes the personal injury accident. Your personal injury lawyer will tell you what types of documents you need to include in your personal injury lawsuit as well.

Filing the complaint

You’ll have your personal injury lawyer file your case at your local courthouse with the presiding clerk. You’ll often have to include a check or a money order because many courthouses don’t accept credit cards. Be sure to pay the exact fee for filing – this is generally between $200 and $300.

Your personal injury lawyer will be informed about how to serve the summons to the defendant by the clerk. While some courts allow you to mail the summons to the defendant, the summons will need to be hand-delivered in most instances. Now that you have some understanding of the processes that go into filing a personal injury lawsuit, you can see that this is not a complex process. You can ask for further clarification from a personal injury lawyer.