Injuries are far more common than most people realize. According to CDC data, roughly 39.5 million injuries requiring medical treatment occur in the United States each year, which works out to about 126 for every 1,000 people. Only a fraction of those become legal claims, but the sheer number is one reason nearly every personal injury firm offers a free initial consultation.
That meeting serves two purposes. It is your chance to decide whether the attorney is right for you, and the attorney's chance to evaluate whether they can successfully pursue your case. Knowing what to expect helps you use that limited time well, and a good Virginia Beach personal injury attorney will use it to give you an honest read on your claim.
Our firm has represented injured clients throughout Virginia and North Carolina since 1985, and we handle injury cases exclusively. At Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp, your initial consultation is always free and comes with no strings attached. You can read more about our background at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp.
What a Personal Injury Attorney Actually Does
A skilled attorney contributes to a case in many ways, well beyond simply showing up in court. Those roles include:
- Advising you on all of your legal options for seeking compensation
- Gathering the evidence that proves fault for your accident and injuries
- Preparing and filing your insurance claim
- Communicating with the insurance adjuster and countering their reasons for denying the claim
- Negotiating a fair settlement
- Preparing and filing a lawsuit if the case cannot be settled
- Handling discovery, pre-trial motions, and litigation
- Presenting your case at trial
You deserve to meet with the attorney who will actually handle your case, not a paralegal, investigator, or case manager. A personal injury case requires the same careful evaluation as any other legal matter. If the attorney will not even speak with you during your free consultation and a non-lawyer decides whether you have a case, your claim isn't being properly assessed.
What Attorneys Look For in a Case
Before you call, it helps to understand that a valid personal injury claim rests on two basic requirements: you sustained a physical injury, not merely property damage, and another party's negligence caused that injury. In a slip-and-fall, for example, simply being hurt on someone else's property is not enough. You must show that the property owner's negligence directly caused your injury. Beyond those basics, an attorney weighs several factors when evaluating a case.
Liability
Establishing who is at fault is the bedrock of every personal injury case. Virginia follows pure contributory negligence, one of only a handful of jurisdictions that do. Under this rule, if you are found even one percent at fault for the accident, you can be barred from recovering anything. So if a police report suggests you caused or contributed to a crash, an attorney may be reluctant to take the case, not because your injuries are not real, but because Virginia's rule makes any shared fault potentially fatal to the claim. Once fault is established, the attorney will assess whether it can actually be proven in court.
Severity of the Injury
You must have a genuine basis to file a claim. If you suffered serious injuries requiring costly treatment and lost wages during your recovery, an attorney is more likely to take the case. Some of the most serious injuries people bring claims for include spinal cord injuries, paralysis, burns, and traumatic brain injuries. That said, you do not need to have been in a catastrophic wreck to have a valid claim. Injuries suffered while walking, cycling, or from a defective product can support a claim.
Economic Value
It may sound blunt, but the economic value of a case matters to the attorney as much as it does to you. Whether the damages involve large hospital bills, lost income, or pain and suffering, an attorney who takes a case on a contingency fee only gets paid if the case succeeds, and they advance the out-of-pocket costs in the meantime. So they need reasonable confidence that the claim has real value for both of you. This is not callousness; it is the economic reality that makes contingency-fee representation possible in the first place.
What You Have Already Said
Avoid speaking with anyone from the insurance company until you have talked to an attorney. If you have already spoken with an adjuster, your attorney needs to know. An adjuster may have already persuaded you to give a recorded or written statement, and anything you said in it could later be used against you. That is exactly why the first step after an accident, once your medical needs are addressed, should be to contact an attorney before giving any statement to an insurer.
A Critical Deadline: Notice of Claim Against the Government
Virginia sets a statute of limitations on all personal injury lawsuits, but claims involving a government entity carry an additional, earlier requirement that's easy to miss. If your potential claim is against a local government, meaning a town, county, or city, or against the Commonwealth of Virginia itself, you must also satisfy a procedural step called a notice of claim. Missing it can forfeit your rights even if you filed within the ordinary statute of limitations.
For a claim against the Commonwealth, Virginia Code § 8.01-195.6 requires you to file written notice stating the nature of the claim and the time and place of the injury within one year after the cause of action accrued. For a claim against a local government, you must provide that written notice within six months. These deadlines arrive well before the standard limitations period, which is one more reason to consult an attorney promptly.
Why Experience Matters
The reputable Virginia Beach personal injury attorneys at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp have achieved results in injury cases since the firm was established in 1985. Drawing on more than 100 years of combined experience, we help clients prove negligence, gather critical evidence, build a compelling case, and pursue maximum compensation. That experience is how we obtained a $1.6 million jury verdict for a client who suffered a traumatic brain injury and seizures after a hospital physician failed to properly address her symptoms. Results depend on the facts of each case, but an outcome like that reflects the work we put into every claim we take.
Ready to Talk About Your Case? Contact Us Today
If you were injured in an accident caused by someone else's negligence, a Virginia Beach personal injury attorney at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp can evaluate your claim and explain your options at no cost to you. Contact us at 833-997-1774 for a free consultation, or fill out the contact form on our website. We have offices in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Norfolk, and Chesapeake, and we are ready to put our experience to work for you and your family.
