Rochelle’s Best Personal Injury Lawyers
Car Accident, Personal Injury, Farm Accidents
We’ve helped thousands of injured people get through their injuries. Compassionate help.
Rochelle, Illinois is a municipality directly South of Rockford along the I-39/I-90 corridor. With just under 10,000 residents, Rochelle has a number of State Highways, and the IL 251 highway that runs through its geographic area. If you or a loved one has been hurt or injured in a Rochelle, we can help. While our office is not located in Rochelle we’re a convenient distance away and if you can’t get to us, we also offer personal visits at your home, work, nursing home, assisted living facility, hospital, or Zoom visits, and telephone consultations.
Injured in a Rochelle Car Accident?
Here’s who to call.
In Rochelle, the most likely responding law enforcement agencies to a car crash in your area would be:
- Ogle County Sheriff’s Office at 202 S. 1st St., Oregon, IL 61061, by phone at 815-732-2136 or on the web for a copy of your crash report
- Or if it’s the City of Rochelle that responded to your accident scene, you can contact their records division at 416 N 6th St. Rochelle, IL 61068, call 815-562-2131, or on the web respectively.
Likewise if you contact our office for help making your Rochelle, Illinois Personal Injury claim we have access to the report database through Lexis Nexis and can order this without you needing to visit an area law enforcement records division.
Once you have contacted them for a copy of your crash report, if you provide this information to us we can begin your case by opening up a claim with the other insurance company, and/or your own insurance company to notify them that an injury has occurred, and to initiate a property damage claim for your vehicle. From there we can assist you and your family in the following ways:
- Assisting you with obtaining proper medical care
- Assisting with your medical billing and general record keeping
- Assist you with obtaining temporary financial relief with a third party financing company (if necessary) if your injury has impacted your ability to work and provide for your required expenses.
- Attend traffic court hearings with you, or on your behalf
- Resolve insurance issues
- And most importantly, fight for the compensation you’re entitled to.
How Much is My Rochelle Personal Injury Case Worth?
Common injuries we handle in personal injury cases are broken bones, fractures, ligament strains, and concussions. If you have any injuries stemming from an auto accident the most important thing you can do is to seek treatment for all injuries. While we can never tell a client when they come in how much a case is worth, one way that we’re able to appraise the value of a case is how much medical treatment someone had to endure, and then discuss with the client how the injury impacted their day-to-day life. Were they able to play with their children, attend work, take a shower, pick up items to perform household chores, drive to medical appointments, etc. Once we discuss with you what a reasonable number might be, we submit that demand to the responsible insurance company that was covering the Defendant/Tortfeasor (person who caused your injury).
If they agree to pay the specified amount this is called a “Settlement”. If they refuse to pay what’s fair, or offer an amount lower than you wish to take this is when we would prepare a lawsuit, file it with our county circuit clerk’s office, have the defendant/tortfeasor served, and set the case ultimately for a trial so that a Ogle County jury can determine what a fair recovery is for your personal injury case. There are key areas after a lawsuit is filed that may allow a settlement to occur even after a lawsuit is filed but the biggest threat an injured person has, is that their lawyer will drag the insurance company through the mud in front of a jury. Also, there are no hard and fast rules on what a fair amount might be for any case generally. Fair is ultimately what the client thinks is fair, and then adjusted to what previous cases may have been assigned at trial in their respective area. You may have heard that the value of a case is 3 times the total of medical bills. While that sometimes can be a standard metric on some cases, often times it falls critically short. For example if the injured party had a large income that was curtailed or reduced based on the permanence of the injury sustained, or if it’s a lifetime debilitating injury, a simple calculation of medical bills being multiplied doesn’t compare to the amount of financial loss a victim would suffer if that was the bench mark that was applied to appraising their claim.
As an example if your case involved a fractured sternum with a typical recovery, and a normal amount of medical appointments, we can typically find a similar case within the surrounding area and see how much a jury awarded in that real case. We can then provide that case information to the insurance company and say this is what we’re likely to get at trial, and we’re going to ask for even more because our case is distinguishable in these other ways, etc. Simply being prepared, and being willing to take cases to trial is one sure fire way to get a better recovery for all clients than what will happen if someone brings on a lawyer that does not file lawsuits or tries to handle their case on their own.
Illinois Time Limits on Filing Suit
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 to run on the date of the accident. Sometimes, however, 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.
Get in Touch
For an honest, free, and compassionate consultation about your Rochelle, or Ogle County, Illinois personal injury case, feel free to call or text message us confidentially at (815) 964-8303. Remember our service is absolutely no cost to you unless we earn a recovery on your behalf. Let us 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.