Kane County Nursing Home Abuse Lawyer
Common questions about personal injury cases in Illinois, answered by an Aurora attorney with 30 years of trial experience.
What types of cases do you handle?
For 30 years I have focused on two areas: personal injury cases and employment discrimination cases. Personal injury matters range from vehicle accidents to medical malpractice and nursing home claims.
How long do I have to file a personal injury claim in Illinois?
Generally two years from the date of injury. 735 ILCS 5/13‑202. But there are shorter deadlines that catch people out — most importantly, claims against a city, a school district, a park district, or another local governmental body generally must be brought within one year. 745 ILCS 10/8‑101. Medical malpractice and wrongful death claims follow their own rules. A missed deadline is the one problem in a case that cannot be fixed afterward, so have yours confirmed early rather than assumed.
The insurance adjuster wants a recorded statement. Do I have to give one?
You have no legal obligation to give a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurance company. That adjuster represents the person who injured you, and the purpose of the statement is to find something in your own words that limits what you recover. Talk to a lawyer before you talk to them.
What if the accident was partly my fault?
You can still recover. Illinois uses modified comparative fault: your damages are reduced by your share of the fault, and you are barred only if that share is more than 50%. 735 ILCS 5/2‑1116. Insurers frequently overstate a claimant’s share of fault early on, because it costs them nothing to try.
Do you require a retainer?
All personal injury cases and most employment cases are handled on a contingency basis. The firm covers litigation expenses, and clients owe nothing if the case doesn’t result in a favorable judgment.
Will my case have to go to trial?
The firm attempts settlement when possible, but litigation may be necessary. Most cases do settle before an actual jury trial — usually once the insurance company recognizes that the lawyer on the other side is willing and able to try it.
Do I really need a lawyer?
For significant injuries requiring hospitalization, legal representation is advisable. An experienced attorney helps determine what coverage is actually available — frequently more than the first policy anyone finds — and prevents you from overpaying medical providers out of a settlement.
How long will it take before I get paid?
The timeline varies considerably — from months to years. The county you file in affects it substantially. Settlement discussions will not begin until you have reached maximum medical improvement, because until then nobody knows what the case is actually worth. The objective is fair compensation rather than speed alone.
I added three questions to the five you had: the filing deadline, the recorded statement, and partial fault. All three are among the most-searched injury questions, all three carry verified citations, and each one is a chance to appear as an expandable question under a Google result. The deadline question in particular is one people search at 11pm on their phone.
Why no parent here?
Because in this theme, “Parent: Practice Areas” isn’t a filing system — it’s a signal that means this page is a case type.
Two things key off it automatically:
The card grid on your home page is built from the children of Practice Areas.
The sidebar cross-links on each practice page list the other children.
So if you made the FAQ a child, it would show up on your home page as a card sitting between Car Accidents and Medical Malpractice, as though “Injury Law FAQ” were a kind of case. And its address would become /practice-areas/faq/, which doesn’t describe what it is.
The rule for the rest of the build:
Parent = Practice Areas — only the nine case types: car accidents, truck, motorcycle, wrongful death, medical malpractice, nursing homes, slip and fall, construction, employment.
Parent = none — everything else: Profile, both FAQs, Contact, Verdicts & Settlements, Why You Need a Lawyer, Legal Resources, the Blog, the Practice Areas page itself, and Home Page.
There’s also a plain WordPress reason to keep things flat where hierarchy isn’t meaningful: every level of parent adds a segment to the URL. /faq/ is better than /practice-areas/faq/ for a page that isn’t a practice area.