What is a Demand Letter?
Many people believe that once they see their personal injury attorney, a lawsuit will be filed right away. But that’s not always the case. Sometimes, your attorney may want to wait to file a lawsuit, to give the defendant or insurance company the opportunity to offer to settle the case.
Why Settle Before Trial?
Settling the case before a lawsuit is filed has its advantages to you, as an injured accident victim. Settling without a lawsuit minimizes your expenses, and sometimes, your attorneys fees. It allows you to realize compensation sooner and more quickly than you would if a lawsuit is filed.
The downside is that often, earlier, quicker settlements, before a lawsuit is filed, may yield a smaller compensation amount, but that’s not always the case.
The Demand Letter
So if your attorney does want to try to settle with the other side without filing a lawsuit, how does the other side know enough about your case, to make a meaningful offer, or a settlement offer that correctly takes into account your injuries or financial losses?
The answer is the demand letter. As the name suggests, the demand letter is a letter drafted by your attorneys, and sent to the other side, explaining everything about both the accident itself, and about your injuries–and demanding compensation for your losses. .
The demand letter will often have medical records, or other evidence attached to it, that the attorney intends to use in trial. However, because no lawsuit is filed, and there is no obligation to provide every single document, your attorney may select which records or evidence or information to send, and which to not send—and in some cases, important pieces of evidence may not even be available or in your attorney’s possession, at that early of a stage of the case.
The letter may also have any applicable laws that your attorney believes are favorable to you. In many cases, legal research will be done and included in the demand letter, explaining why the law is in your favor, or why your attorneys believe that a judge or jury will ultimately find in your favor.
The Other Side’s Response
The letter is the other side’s first time to hear your position or version of the facts and of what happened. They do, of course, know that the letter is slanted your way—a demand letter is not a neutral, unbiased document. Still, a thorough, persuasive demand letter, can go a long way to eliciting a meaningful settlement.
The other side will read and review the letter, and come up with a settlement value, which your attorney can accept or reject (on your instruction, of course), and the back-and-forth negotiation continues.
Because it is a settlement communication, nothing that is said in the letter, or in any responses to it by the other side, can be used in trial, should the matter not settle and have to go to court.
Call the Boston personal injury lawyers at The Law Office of Joseph Linnehan, Jr. today at 617-275-4200 for help and to see if a demand letter can help you if you were injured in an accident.
Source:
clio.com/blog/personal-injury-demand-letter/#:~:text=A%20personal%20injury%20demand%20letter%20is%20sent%20to%20the%20insurance,the%20other%20party%20is%20responsible.
