Proper upkeep is important for any property. Without it, any visitors could potentially sustain serious injuries, from broken bones to fractures. A property owner must put in the work to keep their property in good condition to protect visitors and passersby; otherwise, under Arizona and Utah law, they can be held liable for any accidents. Have you recently fallen while you were out shopping or slipped on a patch of ice on your neighbor’s sidewalk? Consider hiring a knowledgeable Arizona slip and fall lawyer.
If you’ve recently suffered an injury on another person’s property, you may have cause for compensation for lost work, medical bills, or pain and suffering. An attorney can help you pursue that — but first, you need to know how to find one. Esquire Law highlights what to look for in a qualified slip and fall accident lawyer to help you narrow down your options.
What To Look for in a Slip & Fall Lawyer
How do you find personal injury lawyers you can trust to know the law and advocate on your behalf? Find a slip and fall lawyer with the following characteristics:
- Competent support team: When a trip and fall lawyer maintains a team of secretaries, paralegals, and investigators, you’ll have confidence knowing they can provide multiple levels of support, from customer service to in-depth fact-finding.
- Attorney experience: Ask the fall injury attorney about their case history, especially concerning cases that resemble yours. Consider the lawyer’s years of experience and percentage of successful cases.
- Resources: How much time and resources can the attorney dedicate to your case? Can they litigate in a courtroom as capably as they negotiate?
- Communication: You want a lawyer who speaks to you politely and in a way you can understand, rather than an elitist or someone just there to take your money. Prioritize the attorney who takes time to build a relationship with you.
In particular, it can help to research the following factors to help narrow down your options.
Experience in Slip & Fall Cases
When you work with a slip and fall accident lawyer who has experience in cases like yours, they’re able to adapt to a wider range of challenges. A premises liability attorney with a history of cases like yours also means they know all the nuances of the law, precedents, and other knowledge they can use to increase their chances of successfully advocating on your behalf.
What are the different elements that an attorney should have experience navigating?
- Negligence: Negligence refers to a lack of proper precautions on the part of the property owner, and generally indicates they’re responsible for paying some form of compensation.
- Injury type: Whether you’ve tripped, slipped, stumbled, or stepped before your fall can affect how your attorney advocates your case and the type of evidence they collect on your behalf.
- Victim status: Whether you were on the property legally or not will greatly affect the approach your lawyer takes. If you were trespassing on the property, you’ll want a lawyer with significant experience if you want a successful case.
- Sought compensation: The type of remuneration you’re seeking, such as medical expenses, lost wages, or pain and suffering, can affect how your lawyer advocates your case.
Check Your Lawyer’s Credentials
When you work with an Arizona slip and fall lawyer you should examine their certifications and credentials to ensure they can provide the highest level of service. First, confirm they’re licensed to practice law in Arizona, then verify they’ve focused the majority of their career providing premises accident legal help.
If you want extra assurance they have the knowledge and experience to advocate on your behalf, spend some time investigating the law school they attended, any journals they’ve written for, and any slip and fall accident lawyer awards or distinctions they’ve received.
Some awards your Arizona attorney can win include the following:
- The On the Rise Award distinguishes 40 highly rated lawyers under 36 at the national level.
- E. Smythe Gambrell Professionalism Awards highlight innovative legal professionalism programs.
- Solo and Small Firm Awards recognize the accomplishments of smaller law firms.
- The Samuel S. Smith Award is a lifetime achievement award for law firm management.
- The James I. Keane Award identifies outstanding innovation in providing personalized legal services over the Internet.
- The Howard Twiggs Award highlights excellence in professionalism, service, and courtroom advocacy.
Also, examine whether your lawyer has joined any distinguished organizations or associations that lend them credibility. These groups include the American Arbitration Association, the American Bar Association, and the American Association for Justice.
Reviews and Testimonials
If you’re looking for slip and fall lawyer services and want a more in-depth understanding of how well they can advocate on your behalf, look at the lawyer’s reviews and testimonials. While every review has some bias, if you notice broad positive and negative trends from previous clients, you can assume they communicate something true about the lawyer.
Reviews act as a more brief form of assessing an attorney’s performance. They usually rely on a ranked rating (such as one to five stars) and a limited word count. You can often find reviews on a law firm’s website, but you should also visit third-party websites like injury.com.
Testimonials often provide a more in-depth picture of how the attorney rendered services. They usually have a higher word count, more specific details about an individual case, and may still utilize a ranking system like stars. Many law firms or attorney websites post positive testimonials from their former clients.
One final method of determining whether an attorney can provide adequate service is asking friends, family, or associates for a reference. Many people know someone who’s used a personal injury lawyer, and if you know and trust this person’s opinion and experience, it can weigh heavily in your decision.
FAQs for a Slip & Fall Lawyer
Do you still have questions about hiring a slip and fall lawyer, the causes of these accidents, or what happens throughout the process? Consider these answers to the topic’s common questions.
What Kinds of Damages Can You Recover in a Slip and Fall Case?
Damage recovery refers to the money you can receive as compensation for falling on another person’s property. Depending on the nature of your case and injuries, you can ask your lawyer to advocate that you recover the following types of damages:
- Medical bills: After your fall, you likely had medical expenses ranging from treating a concussion or broken limb to an extended hospital stay and prolonged reliance on medications. Many personal injury cases involve seeking recompense for these expenses.
- Lost wages: After an injury, you likely spent time at home recovering and weren’t able to work. Recovering lost wages can help you regain that income and can even pay you for future wages you’ll miss out on from a reduced ability to perform your duties.
- Scarring: If your accident left you scarred, it can have long-term physical and psychological effects on your well-being. Your lawyer can argue that you’re due more damages to help compensate.
- Suffering and pain: Pain and suffering refers to the more intangible effects your injury has on your ability to earn an income, perform daily tasks, and deal with chronic pain.
- Emotional pain: These damages help you compensate for treating the long-term effects of trauma such as anxiety, depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and any cognitive challenges like lack of concentration or memory recall.
- Companionship loss: If your injury caused damage to your relationship or left you incapable of caring for a pet, you may have cause for additional damages.
What Causes Slip and Fall Accidents?
Falling from slips, trips, or stumbles can happen on almost any type of property, especially when the owner doesn’t perform their due diligence to keep the space safe. The common causes of slip and fall accidents include the following:
- If you encounter an open pit, such as at a construction site or industrial workspace, you risk breaking a limb or experiencing a concussion. Due diligence requires property owners to keep pits covered whenever possible.
- Slipping on a recently mopped floor is one of the more common personal injuries. If the proper authorities didn’t mark the floor as wet, they may bear liability for your accident.
- Mechanics and residential driveways remain vulnerable to oil spills, which visitors may have trouble detecting. If the property owner didn’t clean up an oil spill, your lawyer can advocate your case.
- Home and business owners must keep their sidewalks free of ice. While rare in Arizona, if you slip on a sidewalk, seek out a personal injury lawyer for help.
- Property owners should keep staircases clean and free of debris that could cause slipping or tripping. If you’ve fallen down a cluttered staircase, you could receive some considerable damage recovery.
- Uneven ground, a lack of safety rails, and potholes can all lead to potential falls.
Who Is Responsible for Your Injuries?
Determining who bears responsibility for your injuries is the primary way your attorney establishes the property owner should pay compensation for your accident. With this goal in mind, your lawyer will set about proving negligence on behalf of the property owner. Negligence means the at-fault party could have reasonably addressed the cause of the injury and prevented it from occurring but didn’t.
Your lawyer could also try proving that the owner willfully created the conditions that led to the injury, such as laying a trap against potential intruders.
A successful case depends on your lawyer proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the property owner didn’t perform their due diligence in some way.
What Should You Do After a Slip and Fall in Arizona?
After a slip and fall incident in Arizona, you should take the following steps to ensure you receive sufficient care and advocacy.
First, receive medical treatment to reduce the likelihood you having more severe medical or long-term complications. Even if you don’t think you experienced a severe injury, your doctor may still identify problems you should treat. Visiting the doctor also supplies the evidence you’ll need to argue your case, as it will provide clear documentation of your injuries and how much it costs to treat them.
Next, seek out legal advice from a qualified personal injury lawyer. During this process, they’ll learn all the details of your case, gather evidence, speak with witnesses and professionals, and determine a realistic goal for a settlement amount.
While you still have an open case, avoid talking about it or giving official statements. Don’t post about it on social media, as the defendant could use anything you say against you. The owner’s insurance will also reach out to you and try to convince you to give a statement, but you shouldn’t speak with them and refer them to your lawyer instead.
Esquire Law Slip and Fall Law Services
When you need a dedicated personal injury lawyer, reach out to Esquire Law. With an experienced and qualified team of personal injury lawyers in Phoenix, Tucson, and Salt Lake City, we work tirelessly to advocate your case.
We start the process with a no-obligation, no-cost consultation where we gather all the information we need to determine the eligibility of your case. If we believe you could benefit from partnering with a slip and fall accident lawyer, we’ll start the process. We’ll gather the evidence required to present your case, including:
- Witness testimonies about the accident
- Professional input about the severity of your injuries
- Potential surveillance footage of the incident
We can also work with the insurance company on your behalf and counter any claims to delay the process or mitigate their payments to you. To minimize the time and stress the process has on you, our goal is always settling outside of court. However, if your case goes to trial, you won’t find a fiercer litigator.
You only have a limited amount of time to file a personal injury claim after your slip and fall. If you’re ready for a free consult with an Arizona slip and fall lawyer, contact Esquire Law at (801) 528-7890.