Do I really need a lawyer for a minor accident?

If your car has a scratch, nobody went to the hospital, and the other driver is admitting fault, you can often handle it yourself. Insurance pays for the repair, you move on, and a lawyer would mostly be in the way.

Where people get hurt, financially, is the in-between. The fender bender that turned into back pain a week later. The dog bite that needed stitches. The slip and fall at the grocery store that seemed minor until the MRI came back. In those cases, settling early with the insurance company often closes the door on real money you would have needed for ongoing treatment.

Our rule of thumb: if you went to a doctor, if you missed work, or if anything still hurts more than a few days later, it is worth a free call. Not because you definitely have a case, but because finding out you do not is a five minute conversation, and finding out too late that you did is the kind of thing that haunts people.