Do you need an Attorney to Get Workers’ Comp Benefits?

Whether you require a lawyer to represent you after you’re injured and have a workers’ comp claim will depend on numerous factors.

When do you need a lawyer?

If any of these are true, you ought to retain a lawyer as soon as you can:

• Workplace injuries are serious enough to need surgery.
• Workplace injuries are moderate to serious. If your doctor and you think your health will not return to the condition it once was before your injury, you might be entitled to an award of “permanent partial disability.”
• You think you no longer have the ability to work on a routine basis within any job.
• You think you can’t return to work at your present job, yet think you might be able to work in some capacity.
• You possess substantial pre-existing disabilities.
• You’d like to dispute an adverse determination made by your employer’s insurance provider, your employer, or your state’s workers’ compensation division in regard to your workers’ comp claim.
• You think you aren’t obtaining the right benefits, or wonder if there are extra benefits you might obtain.
• Medical benefits are denied.
• Employer disputed a determination made by your state workers’ compensation division.
• You don’t understand the workers’ compensation process and might feel more comfortable if a professional represented your interests.

Irrespective of the workers’ comp claim circumstances, you’re entitled to get an attorney.  If the injuries are serious enough that your life is going to permanently be altered, either because of a change within ability to work or permanent impairment, a workers’ compensation attorney will have the ability to advocate on your behalf to make sure you get the worker’s comp benefits and clinical care you’re entitled to. Additionally, if the injury might keep you from permanently working, an attorney may advise you on filing for Social Security disability benefits, too.

Many states provide vocational services to people who don’t have the ability to go back to work in their previous jobs because of an industrial injury. A workers’ compensation lawyer may help you to navigate the system in order for you to most likely receive retraining or financial payment to help you as you receive alternate employment.

When do you not require a lawyer?

If the injuries are minor, you expect to return to work with your employer at your present position after a few weeks’ or days’ recovery, and you don’t think the workplace injury resulted within permanent bodily function loss, you won’t have to hire a lawyer.