Bike crashes, litigation and attorneys

If you’ve ever been hit and injured while bicycling and attempted litigation to recover your medical costs, you already know that finding an attorney who will take your case can be very difficult.

I’ve heard before that attorneys are reluctant to take on bike cases because of dismal success rates and low payouts. When I ran into San Francisco cyclist and attorney Shaana Rahman a couple of weekends ago, she told me she takes bicycle personal injury cases because she’s a a true believer cycling advocate, but confirmed that most attorneys won’t take personal injury bicycle crash cases on contingency because they don’t expect to win.

Biking In LA covers this topic in more detail, outlining jury trial success rate and average and median awards when a cyclist tries to recover damages in a bike injury case.

3 Comments

  1. Yep. I found this out a while back when, at the request of a local cyclist that had been hit, I tried to get a good referral for an injury attorney. Being a lawyer in a city full of lawyers, it usually takes me a handful of calls before I get a handful of good referrals. But a personal injury attorney who understands and is willing to take on a cyclist’s case? That was tough.

    (It’s particularly tough in my area (DC), which sits in the few remaining “contributory negligence” jurisdictions. This creates an incredibly high bar for recovery, and I can’t imagine that a practice of just cycling cases could even put food on the table.)

  2. people in Ireland who make a personal injury claim settle for an amount that does not truly compensate them for the loss and suffering they experience due to their accident. They can help make certain this does not happen to you because they are specialist personal injury solicitors for Ireland.

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