The Best Car Accident and Personal Injury Lawyers in DeKalb

Help us help you, contact us with your crash report. 

If your injury stems from a car accident, the responding law enforcement agency will prepare a crash report. This report helps our lawyers with important and valuable information regarding your car accident.

If you or a loved one were in a car wreck in DeKalb or in DeKalb County, these are the two main law enforcement agencies who might have responded:

• DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department
  150 N. Main St.
  Sycamore, IL 61078
  815-895-7260 or
  on the web
• DeKalb City Police Department
  700 W. Lincoln Highway
  DeKalb, IL 60115
  815-748-8400, or
  on the web

If you’ve been injured in a car accident in DeKalb, Illinois or in a nearby community, there are three ways to recover compensation for your injury.

The first way is to handle your claim yourself or with a lawyer and work out a settlement with the insurance company. If you have complex injuries or the accident was sever enough, having a lawyer is a really good option. A law firm that works car accidents will have a better idea of what your compensation should be valued as. Keep in mind that insurance companies don’t always play fair.

The second is to file a lawsuit and have a judge or jury decide on liability and damages. This would be a lawsuit you bring against the insurance company and would require an attorneys help. Sometimes the lawsuit is settled out of court but they can also go to trails. For cases that go to trail you’ll want a law firm that prepares any case or lawsuit for trails. Not every firm does this, it’s more work, but our firm does.

The third option is to litigate your claim through the Illinois Car Accident Settlement Process, which is described in further detail on this page.

The car accident settlement process roughly flows in this order:

1. The accident occurs.
2. You seek treatment and a lawyer (we can refer you to various healthcare providers if you don’t have your own providers).
3. You work on getting better through treatment (physical recovery). Yes, this can be a time-consuming process, but we take care of everything with your insurance, and handle your property damage claim to get your vehicle fixed in as short a time period as possible.
4. We investigate your claim, and perhaps bring on an accident reconstructionist or other useful experts to build your case in preparation for a jury to hear your story.
5. When you are back to how you were prior to your accident, or as close to 100% as your doctor believes you will get, we start to compile your medical bills.
6. We then compile any of your lost wages (e.g., time missed from work for medical appointments, time lost to various treatments, and time you were out of work from the injury).
7. We then assess how your quality of life has been impacted from your accident. So, if you can no longer participate in the activities you did prior to the accident, if you can’t pick your children up anymore, or if you have problems grocery shopping, among other limitations, we start to formulate what we may be seeking in pain and suffering amounts for an accurate idea of what to ask an insurance adjuster or jury to award you.
8. We then submit what is known as a “demand” letter to the other driver’s insurance company, requesting a specific amount to avoid litigation. From there, they have the choice to accept the demand, counter offer a different amount, or reject settlement.
9. If we cannot arrive at a resolution that you are satisfied with, the next step is to pursue a trial. Steps 2-9 can occur while a lawsuit is pending. If negotiations don’t work, we move into a trial or arbitration stage of your case, in which we make an argument to a DeKalb County judge, jury, or panel of arbitrators, and argue over liability (i.e., who caused your accident) and/or what a fair amount of money is to resolve your case (i.e., damages).

Yes you can. Serious injuries can hide themselves. Illinois sets a time limit of two years to file a personal injury lawsuit in the state’s civil court system.

In most cases, this two-year time limit, known as a “statute of limitations,” begins on the date of the accident. Sometimes a statute of limitations might run from the date that you discovered you were injured, rather than the date of the event that injured you. This later date is known as a “discovery date.”

For injury claims against a city or county, you have one year to file a lawsuit. The time limit to sue the state is generally two years, but you must file a formal claim within one year in order to sue.

It can get a bit tricky to understand the details of automotive accident law here in Illinois, but we’re here to help.

For an honest, free, and compassionate consultation about your DeKalb, Illinois personal injury case, feel free to call or text message us confidentially at (815) 964-8303 or contact us using the form on this page. Remember, our service is absolutely at no cost to you unless we earn a recovery on your behalf. Let our trusted professionals help you or your loved one navigate the legal side of your case and fight for your financial recovery, while you focus on your physical recovery.