With approximately 15 million residents, road-dependent transportation and generally good highways and roads, Florida residents stand a good chance of being in at least one, if not more, accidents in a car or on a motorcycle during their lifetimes.  Car crashes are a leading cause of injury and death for citizens of all ages, drivers and passengers.  Regardless of how careful you are, despite the most cautious defensive driving, your chance of being the victim of someone else’s negligence while in a car in Florida are much higher than you would want and higher than you may imagine.

Assuming the person who caused the crash has insurance, their insurance company will very often try to get in touch with you as soon as possible and try to settle your claim for as little as possible. Adjusters are simply trained to “buy” claims for as little as they can.  Over the course of a lifetime, regardless of when a compensable car crash happens, the typical victim will pay many, many times more into the insurance “pool” than their claim is worth.  Adjusters will try to make you feel as though you are taking “advantage” of the company by obtaining a fair settlement. Thus, it is extremely important to hire competent, experienced and capable attorneys as soon as you are ready after you are in a car crash.  It is equally important to have quality representation before you talk to any insurance company.  Insurance companies train their adjusters to appeal to the emotional needs of people hurt in car crashes by being sympathetic, offering to be helpful, but all the while, their main goal is to get you to accept the smallest amount as compensation for your claim as possible.

In order to recover for damages from a car crash in Florida, you must successfully prove liability, damages and find someone who is responsible and has insurance.  You also have to prove a “permanent impairment” to recover for more than your lost wages and medical expenses.  Negotiating the maze of legal requirements requires competent representation, and you should retain a law firm with the necessary skill and experience to make sure you are fully compensated for your damages.  Our law firm has been handling such automobile cases for over 20 years for residents of Florida and their families as well as out-of-state residents who are the unfortunate victims of such motor vehicle accidents while traveling in Florida. It is always our goal to ensure that each accident victim receives the best recovery possible for their injuries and damages while keeping a mind towards the ensuring the victims receive appropriate health care to ensure their physical recovery as well.

At Winston & Clark, we thoroughly investigate all of our claims, and “work them up”. This means we will pay to develop it with the right investigators and experts. For instance, a slip and fall case may require an expert in the building code, a medical malpractice case will require doctors, an airplane crash will likely require pilots and engineers to testify about exactly why you are entitled to money from the defendant who caused your injury.  If you’re badly hurt, we may hire an economist to tell the jury about how your lost wage claim works out in the future, or we may hire a vocational rehabilitation expert to set up a life care plan for your future care.  The firm prides itself on its use of technology as well.  Our offices are paperless and organized, and we use Legal-Eze Graphics Company for accident animations, medical illustrations Power Point presentations whenever possible.  We will spend the right amount of money to make your case the best it can be before we present it for a settlement or trial.  See our trial exhibits page for some examples of our work in trial.

You don’t have to go to court if you don’t want to.  We will often try to settle your case before we file suit, to spare you time and expenses out of your money recovery.  It is nice to know that the insurance companies keep track of which attorneys will go to trial in the first place, and who have the experience and the ability to do an excellent job.  If you are being represented by another attorney, ask him of her to tell you exactly how many jury verdicts he or she has obtained in your kind of case.  Then ask how many were in excess of a million dollars. 

We pledge to work your case up aggressively and settle it for its fair and just value (when YOU are ready), and if necessary we will litigate your claim to a court settlement, resolution or jury verdict, depending on what is right for you and your family.  We pay the costs in advance and you pay nothing if we don’t get you money.