Why Hire Trucking Injury Law Group?
You recently suffered life-threatening injuries in a crash with a tractor-trailer. Or, perhaps a close family member, unfortunately, lost their life in a wreck with a delivery, tanker, logging, box, or some other type of truck. You may think to yourself that you can handle filing an insurance claim on your own, so you don’t need an attorney to help you.
However, trucking accident cases can be much more involved than they initially seem on the surface. The choices you make in building a case can dictate its outcome. We strongly encourage you to at least schedule a consultation with an attorney to discuss your case. Read below where we’ll address the question, “Why hire Trucking Injury Law Group?”
Did You Know That Trucking Companies Have Their Own Lawyers?
Were you aware that trucking companies, like most big businesses or ones at significant risk of legal exposure, also have their own attorneys on staff? Why do they? You ask.
A fleet company like that has a lawyer on staff because they know truck-involved accidents can result in serious consequences, which include motorists potentially getting hurt or losing their lives, something that can cost them dearly.
Like any other business, these logistics companies are for-profit entities. Parting ways with their profits isn’t on the agenda. This is why those in the trucking industry rely on the backing of their massive legal teams to devise and deploy any possible strategy they can to deny liability when a truck injury victim files a claim.
Given that these defendants will use all their resources to defend themselves against the allegations you’ve lodged against them, you need to have a legal team with extensive experience backing you as well.
Laws Truckers and Other Industry Players Must Comply with Are Complex
We often find that many individuals don’t have a clear understanding of the laws or regulations trucking companies, truck drivers, and others in related industries must abide by. That is until they have an accident, and an attorney explains how everything works to them.
It’s then that they come to realize that industry players aren’t just governed by federal laws or rules like Hours of Service regulations but state ones as well, including load requirements for intrastate truckers. The intersection of federal and state trucking laws and regulations can make litigating these cases particularly difficult.
Truck Accident Lawyers Trace Lines of Liability
Oftentimes, crash survivors and fatality victims’ loved ones will ask what truck accident attorneys like ours do. Determining liability for wrecks involving tractor-trailers, box or delivery trucks, and others can be quite complex.
So, a large part of the work injury lawyers like ours do is gathering the evidence necessary to provide insight into what caused the truck crash and assessing whether one of the following parties (or someone else) was responsible for its occurrence:
- The trucker
- Other motorists
- The trucking company
- A mechanic
- The loader or packer
- An auto parts manufacturer
You Can Rely on Truck Accident Attorneys to Know Where to Find Evidence
When we mentioned that proving liability for tractor-trailer crashes and other types of truck-involved collisions can be challenging, we didn’t mention why that’s often the case. It has to do with the complexities associated with knowing what is needed, where it is, and then how to collect and analyze it.
In addition to sourcing crash reports and medical records, our lawyers often look to preserve evidence such as the following in trucking accident cases:
- Event data recorder (EDR) data (also referred to as a truck’s “black box”)
- Electronic logging device (ELD) data
- Trucking company records, including inspection, maintenance, compliance/infraction, and hiring
- Photos of crash damage and videos of the accident
- Trucker training, health, drug and alcohol testing, and driving records
- Eyewitness accounts of what happened
- Bills of lading
- Mechanic records
How Expert Witnesses Our Trucking Injury Law Group Hires Strengthen Cases
While our expertise in evidence collection and analysis is often sufficient enough to establish negligence occurred and determine liability, there are some situations in which bringing a crash reconstruction or medical expert into the fold is necessary to build a strong claim or put forth a strong case at trial.
The good news is that because our law firm’s entire focus is tractor-trailer accidents and other crashes involving trucks, we have ready access to a panel of expert witnesses with whom we’ve already built strong relationships. We can call upon them during the pre-litigation and trial phases in cases like these to help us make sense of causation and, thus, liability in legal matters like these.
The expertise these experts can contribute to cases can easily become an important component, with their qualified perspective playing a key role in whether you have a successful lawsuit or not.
Trucking Injury Attorneys Provide Expert Legal Advice
You likely noticed where we mentioned the pre-litigation and trial phases of truck wreck cases. We did this because, while an overwhelming majority of these legal matters are settled after a truck accident, an attorney calculates your losses, crafts a demand letter that they send to insurers, and then settles it through out-of-court negotiation with an insurance adjuster or an insurance company’s lawyers, there are a handful of them that are not and go to trial.
There are various reasons why truck injury cases may not be able to be settled pre-trial, two of which include:
- An insurer denies liability
- An insurance company makes too low of a settlement offer for the losses the victim claims to have
Taking a case to trial can be costly. So, you can expect the attorney you work with to outline those litigation costs for you alongside the ones already incurred in building and representing you in your case when advising you as to whether to take your case to trial or agree to the settlement offer an insurance company might have made.
Additionally, you can count on your lawyer to give you an honest takeaway about the civil trial system, which includes how when you put your fate in a jury’s hands, they might not always decide in your favor as you expect. Experienced legal counsel will often remind their clients of this to ensure they’re fully aware of the potential downsides of taking accident cases like these to trial instead of settling them out of court.
How To Choose the Right Truck Accident Lawyer
If what you’ve read so far has convinced you that taking on those in the trucking industry alone isn’t the wisest choice, and you’re considering hiring legal counsel to help with your truck wreck case, here’s what you’ll want to ask about when interviewing prospective attorneys:
- How long they’ve been handling trucking accident cases
- Whether they believe you have a provable claim or lawsuit
- How many crash cases they’ve handled that are similar to your own (both in terms of how they occurred or the injuries they suffered)
- What their track record of securing settlements is in similar cases
- How often their cases get settled out-of-court versus at trial
- What their communication preferences are (how often and how you can expect them to reach out)
One of the best ways to ask these questions is by scheduling a free consultation with an attorney who is well-versed in handling truck wrecks. Be sure to have any questions like the ones above that you want to ask on hand when meeting with any prospective lawyer you’re looking to work with.
Get To Know Our Truck Crash Attorneys
Our law firm is comprised of three thoroughly experienced trucking accident lawyers, including:
- Kevin Coluccio: A graduate of the University of Puget Sound (now known as Seattle University School of Law) and also the Trial Lawyers College and its unique training program, Kevin is a long-time truck accident attorney who has secured multiple multi-million dollar settlements from those in the trucking industry on behalf of his personal injury and wrongful death clients. He’s one of only a few truck accident lawyers certified by the National Board of Trial Advocacy (NBTA), a distinguished by-examination-only, critically important board certification of attorneys who’ve demonstrated specialized expertise and service in a particular area of the law.
- Matthew Sharp: The tenacity he demonstrates in advocating on behalf of his clients who’ve suffered preventable harm due to the actions of large trucking companies has been instrumental in him securing top-dollar settlements, including a $200 million verdict in 2022, on behalf of clients. Since his graduation from the University of Nevada-Reno, other highlights of Mr. Sharp’s 30-plus year legal career have been his work as a legislative lobbyist regarding the right to a jury trial and his appointment as a two-time president of and Nevada Trial Lawyer of the Year by the Nevada Justice Association.
- Lincoln Sieler: Since his graduation cum laude from the Seattle University School of Law and Trial Lawyers College, Mr. Sieler has gone on to represent clients in various catastrophic injury and product liability cases, some of which were filed against those in the trucking industry, ultimately leading to him securing numerous multi-million dollar settlements in each of those cases. In addition to his client advocacy work, Mr. Sieler has garnered various professional recognitions, including being repeatedly named as a Super Lawyer since 2006 and receiving a Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review preeminent rating.
Why Hiring Legal Counsel After a Truck Collision Is Worth It
Deciding to hire Trucking Injury Law Group or any firm to represent you can seem like a difficult decision, especially when you’ve been through a lot and are struggling financially because of how a crash upended your life. We completely understand these concerns and want you to consider the following points regarding how hiring a lawyer can help you restore some sense of normalcy in your life once again. A legal representative:
- Removes you from the equation in terms of having to field pesky insurance adjuster calls, allowing you to focus on getting better
- Allows someone else to do the hard work of gathering and analyzing evidence and building a strong claim
- Advocate for you and the settlement you deserve for your losses
Our work together begins with a free initial consultation. And, if you decide to hire Trucking Injury Law Group, know that our lawyers work on a contingency fee basis. This means you won’t owe anything for our representation of you in your legal matter unless we secure a settlement on your behalf.
Moving quickly to preserve evidence in a truck accident case is important to a successful claim, so contact our law office to meet with one of our lawyers right away.
