Schenectady Personal Injury Attorney
1473 Erie Boulevard, 2nd Floor
Schenectady, NY 12305
Finkelstein & Partners, LLP – Winning Serious Injury Lawsuits Since 1959
If you’ve been injured in an accident that was the result of someone else’s careless or reckless actions, you can obtain compensation for the expenses and impacts to your quality of life that the injury caused. The process for doing so is a personal injury lawsuit, which is a legal claim filed in civil court. Your claim must be filed within three years in most cases.
A Schenectady personal injury lawyer from Finkelstein & Partners can help you understand the personal injury lawsuit process and can provide guidance and assistance in your case. We are one of the largest personal injury firms in the U.S. and have spent decades fighting for the rights of the injured in New York.
How Do We Prove Liability in a Personal Injury Case?
The ability to prove liability, also known as legal responsibility, is one of the cornerstones of your case.
Your lawyer can prove liability by establishing:
- The at-fault party owed you a duty of care. The duty of care refers to the way a reasonable person would have responded in similar circumstances. For example, the duty of care that one driver owes to other users of the roadways in Schenectady would be to operate his or her motor vehicle safely and legally.
- There was a breach in the duty of care. The breach is the actions that the at-fault party took that were contrary to the duty of care that was owed. Using the car accident example, some common breaches in the duty of care that a driver owes to others include impaired driving, drowsy driving, speeding, or failure to yield the right-of-way.
- The breach caused the accident which resulted in the claimant’s injuries and subsequent financial and psychological impacts.
What Damages Can I Recover in a Schenectady Personal Injury Lawsuit?
Damage means a payment to compensate for harm. New York allows the recovery of both economic and non-economic damages.
Economic damages refer to compensation for the out-of-pocket expenses you have incurred because of your accident, such as:
- Medical expenses, including the cost of emergency treatment at the scene or in the emergency department, transport to the hospital, diagnostic testing, hospitalization, physician and surgical services, prescription medication, physical therapy and rehabilitation, and the provision of assistive devices such as crutches or a wheelchair.
- Lost wages if you are too injured to work or must miss work to attend an injury-related medical appointment.
- Loss of future earning capacity if your injury results in a disability and you can no longer work or earn as much as you did before the accident.
- Property damage, such as the cost of repairing or replacing the vehicle you were driving in a motor vehicle accident.
Non-economic damages refer to compensation that you obtain for the impacts your injury has had on your quality of life. Often, serious injuries prevent an individual from working, living independently, or participating in activities he or she previously enjoyed. Instead, they’re dealing with the pain of the injury and the treatments required to recover from it. This compensation is often referred to as pain and suffering damages, as compensates the injured person for physical and emotional injuries.
What if I Can’t Afford an Attorney?
Many individuals are tempted to represent themselves in their personal injury claim over fear that they can’t afford the services of an attorney. Unfortunately, this often leads to confusion and difficulty, as the legal process of obtaining compensation for your injuries is a complex one that very much requires legal education and training that those who aren’t attorneys cannot be expected to know.
The Schenectady personal injury lawyers from Finkelstein & Partners are pleased to provide two services aimed at ensuring that anyone in Schenectady who needs our services can access them without an upfront financial investment.
Those services include:
- A free case evaluation. This no-obligation evaluation is time with an attorney where you can obtain answers to your legal questions and learn more about the firm and the legal options that are available for you.
- A contingency fee payment arrangement. This means that you owe nothing in attorney fees for your lawyer’s services until there has been a successful outcome in your case.
Our Schenectady Personal Injury Lawyers Can Help
If you’ve been injured in any sort of accident that was caused by someone else’s careless or reckless actions, let our experienced Schenectady personal injury lawyers help you understand your legal options. In the past fifty years, we have helped thousands of clients to obtain the compensation they need to assist with their physical and psychological recovery. Contact Finkelstein & Partners online or call us at (518) 901-4455 for your free case evaluation today.