Getting A Lawyer for Your Small/Minor Accident Claim

What You Need to Know About Your Small or Minor Injury Case: ORS 20.080

You can get a lawyer for almost any case you want - that is, if you are willing to pay $250 or more per hour. But if you want a lawyer to work on a contingency basis, meaning that the lawyer does not take payment up front, but gets paid only if he wins your case, it can be very hard to find a lawyer for a small case.

For a while, insurance companies were refusing to pay more than a few hundred dollars on smaller cases, since they knew that injured people could never get lawyers for them-that is, until the Oregon Legislature realized insurance companies weren’t paying fair, and enacted Oregon Revised Statue 20.080.

ORS 20.080 makes it possible to settle these cases for a fair value, and here’s the good part:

• You can usually settle your case yourself, without a lawyer. That means you get to keep every dollar you get. No attorney fees!
• If that’s not possible, ORS 20.080 has a way that you can often force the insurance company to pay your attorney fees. That is not a misprint. The insurance company that is haggling with you, forcing you to get an attorney by lowballing you, will have to pay your attorney.

For more info on how to settle your Oregon accident case, click here.

Because they know that injured people with smaller cases have a harder time finding representation, insurance companies refuse to pay more than a few hundred dollars. Eventually, the Oregon legislature came together to level the playing field between consumers and manipulative insurance companies, and enacted the Oregon Revised Statute 20.080.

ORS 20.080 makes it possible for those injured to find an Oregon lawyer for any case worth $10,000 or less, as of Jan. 1, 2012. This law also stipulates that if an insurance company refuses to make a reasonable offer within ten days of receiving a letter asking for the reasonable amount by the injured person, the insurance company can be made to pay the person’s lawyer fees.

If you have a small case and would like to know how to proceed, we have provided free and valuable information about ORS 20.080 and settling your smaller Oregon case without a lawyer.

Shulman DuBois LLC is  a personal injury law firm located in Portland, Oregon, and serves clients in all Oregon cities and counties, including: Portland, Beaverton, Multnomah County, Hillsboro, Gresham, Lake Oswego, West Linn, Tualatin, Troutdale, Sellwood, Corvallis, Salem, Eugene, Milwaukie, and Albany.