Frequently Asked Questions

Most California personal injury claims — car accidents, slip-and-falls, dog bites, and similar cases — must be filed within two years of the date of injury under Code of Civil Procedure § 335.1. Wrongful death claims generally follow the same two-year rule, measured from the date of death. There are important exceptions: claims against a government agency (a city, county, school district, or transit authority like Metro) usually require a formal claim within six months, and the clock can run differently for claims involving a minor. Because missing a deadline can permanently bar your claim, it’s worth confirming your specific deadline early rather than assuming the standard two years applies.

There’s no fixed formula, and anyone who promises you a specific number before reviewing your medical records and the facts of your case is getting ahead of the evidence. Case value generally depends on the severity and permanence of your injuries, your total medical expenses (past and projected future treatment), lost income, the strength of the liability evidence, available insurance coverage, and how the injury has affected your daily life. A free consultation lets us look at your specific situation and give you a realistic, honest assessment rather than a guess.

For a very minor incident with no injury, you may be able to handle it yourself. Once there’s a real injury, though, you’re negotiating against an adjuster whose job is to resolve your claim for as little as possible, and research on insurance claims consistently shows represented claimants recover more, net of fees, than unrepresented ones in cases involving real injuries. Because we work on contingency, there’s no upfront cost to have us review your situation and tell you honestly whether representation would help.

You are generally not required to give a recorded statement to the OTHER driver’s insurance company, and we recommend you don’t until you’ve spoken with an attorney. Adjusters are trained to ask questions in ways that can be used later to minimize your claim — for example, asking "how are you feeling today?" to get you to casually say "fine." You can politely decline and refer them to your attorney. (Your OWN insurer may require cooperation under your policy — that’s a different relationship and worth asking us about specifically.)

California law gives the right to file first to a surviving spouse or registered domestic partner and children (including, in some situations, stepchildren or others who depended on the decedent). If there’s no surviving spouse, partner, or child, the right generally passes to whoever would inherit under California’s intestate succession rules, such as parents or siblings. Because the rules get specific quickly — especially with blended families or no immediate next of kin — it’s worth having your family’s situation reviewed directly rather than relying on a general answer.

A contingency fee means we only get paid attorney’s fees if we recover compensation for you — there’s no hourly billing and no upfront retainer. The fee is a percentage of the recovery, agreed to in writing before we start work, and the exact percentage and any case-cost arrangements will be spelled out in your fee agreement so there are no surprises. Note that case costs (filing fees, expert witnesses, records requests) are a separate topic from attorney’s fees and are addressed specifically in that agreement — ask us to walk through it during your free consultation.

We’ll ask you to walk us through what happened, review any documentation you have (photos, police or incident reports, medical records if available), and answer your questions about the process, likely timeline, and whether we think representation would help your specific situation. There’s no obligation to hire us afterward, and nothing you tell us is shared outside the firm.

We generally recommend you don’t, at least not until your claim is resolved. Insurance companies and defense attorneys routinely review claimants’ public social media for anything that can be used to argue you’re less injured than you say — a photo at a family event can be used out of context to suggest you’re not in pain, even if it doesn’t show the whole story. The safest approach is to avoid posting about the incident, your injuries, or your activities until the claim is finished.

Likely yes. California follows "pure comparative negligence," which means you can recover compensation even if you were, say, 30% at fault — your total award is simply reduced by your percentage of fault. This is different from some other states that bar recovery entirely once a certain fault threshold is crossed. How fault gets allocated is often contested, which is exactly the kind of issue worth having reviewed before you accept an insurer’s version of events.

It depends heavily on how long it takes to finish medical treatment (settling before you’ve recovered, or before your long-term prognosis is clear, risks leaving money on the table), how cooperative the insurance company is, and whether the case needs to go into litigation. A straightforward claim with clear liability might resolve in a few months after treatment is complete; a disputed or more serious injury case can take a year or more, especially if it goes to litigation. We’ll give you a realistic timeline estimate specific to your case rather than a generic number.