by Nobody wants to be in a situation where they need an attorney. However, there are times when hiring an experienced attorney is the best option.
Perhaps you’ve been in a car accident, are facing workplace discrimination, or need to understand legal issues like intellectual property rights. Whatever the case, we will all require legal representation at some point in our lives, and these are a few of the most common law fields we might need.
1. Personal Injury Law
Personal injury law is a branch of the law that protects you if your property, life, or general well-being is harmed due to the negligence of another. In a successful personal injury lawsuit, the negligent party compensates the injured party, and a personal injury attorney can help with this.
Any type of accident or serious injury can constitute a personal injury claim. However, the most common types of personal injury claims involve medical negligence, auto accidents, premises liability, wrongful death, product liability, and workplace accidents. A personal injury lawyer can help you file a wrongful death lawsuit if a family member or someone you care about loses their life due to another’s negligence. It’s also important to know that most wrongful deaths are caused by defective products, truck accidents, medical malpractice, elder abuse, and workplace accidents, to name a few.
Each year, millions of people living in the United States lose their lives in motor vehicle crashes involving large trucks, motorcycles, cars, and pedestrians. Truck accidents are often caused by poor brakes, hours-of-service violations or driver fatigue, overloaded tractor-trailers, driving under the influence, and poor visibility. Unfortunately, when a truck crash results in fatalities, it’s often the passenger vehicle occupants in smaller passenger cars that succumb to their injuries. If you’ve been the victim of a truck accident, experienced truck accident attorneys can help you file a truck accident claim.
2. Intellectual Property Law
Intellectual property law is an area of the law that works to protect the intellectual property rights of creators, inventors, and other entrepreneurs. The law recognizes four main types of intellectual property rights, namely patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.
In the U.S., patent law prevents an invention from being sold, used, or created by another party without the permission of the product’s inventor or creator. According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, copyright law protects original creative works from being reproduced without the owner’s permission. Examples of creative works that can be awarded copyrights include literary works, music, software, and visual art.
If you have an invention that has a useful purpose, registered patent attorneys can help you file a utility patent application. Besides this, a patent attorney will also help you understand and enforce your IP rights, offer legal advice, and answer any questions you may have concerning your filed patent application.
3. Employment Law
Employment law attorneys handle employment cases that involve wrongful termination, workplace discrimination, contract violations, whistleblower protections, and sexual harassment, to mention a few.
If your employer’s actions have put you at a disadvantage in the workplace or violated your rights as an employee, an employment law attorney can help. By going through the details of your case, your lawyer will advise on the best course of action to take.
As you prepare for your case, carry all manner of evidence that you may have, as this will help your attorney build the best possible case. For instance, if you were denied overtime benefits, carry copies of your payslip and employment contract to prove that your employer was in violation of this.
Contact a licensed attorney as soon as you become aware of a workplace issue, IP violation, or personal injury. This is because, when it comes to filing a lawsuit of any kind, the law has set specific time limits—a statute of limitations—during which you can assert your rights and complaints. Once this time limit expires, you risk losing your right to file a legal complaint.
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