When you are injured on the job, it can be an extremely stressful situation. In a perfect world, every employer would readily jump to the aid of their injured employees and support them through their recovery so they could return to productive work. The unfortunate truth is that injured employees represent nothing but a costly liability to most employers and are often treated as a nuisance at best. No hardworking employee deserves to be disregarded by an employer looking to minimize costs. Workers compensation attorneys ensure this doesn’t happen.
Ensuring Rights and Benefits
One of the primary duties of a workers comp attorney is to ensure that a client is receiving all of the benefits and compensation they are entitled to under the law. Your attorney will also protect your rights. It is common for companies to manipulate workers comp situations so they end up providing far less benefit than they are supposed to. This can even rise to the level of purposefully giving an injured worker incorrect information about what they can claim.
Sometimes an injured worker will be tempted to go it alone and only hire an attorney after a serious problem, such as a denial of needed benefits, occurs. Part of an attorney’s job is ensuring that these dire situations never occur in the first place. It is far easier to prevent such a legal hassle than to deal with it after the fact. An attorney ensures stable and consistent benefits that an injured person can rely on while they focus on recovery.
Determining Third Party Liability
Some cases may involve third party liability. This means someone other than the injured person, a co-worker or the employer is partly responsible for the injury. Unlike with normal worker’s comp, an injured worker can file a lawsuit against a third party without voiding their normal benefits. Third party liability is an often overlooked way of getting excellent additional compensation for an injury.
Evaluating a Settlement
There are so many factors to consider during a settlement that only an attorney can properly evaluate the situation. Most upfront settlement offers are far lower than they should be. An attorney will help a client understand what they are entitled to and be sure that a fair settlement offer is reached.
The support of an attorney is often invaluable to a workers compensation case. Since these attorneys do not charge upfront fees and work only contingency, they are usually quite affordable. Contingency-based pay means the attorney only gets paid a percentage of the benefit received by the client and will receive nothing until the client gets paid. The percentage is usually a small price to pay for the stability and peace of mind an attorney’s support can bring.
Kidal Delonix is a contributor to Mr. Hoffman's blog. The views and opinions are entirely his/her own and may not reflect Mr Hoffman's views.
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