Do I really need a lawyer or can I just handle this myself?
I know this is probably a dumb question but I'm genuinely trying to figure out if I'm making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be. I work at a garden center in Highland, mostly doing deliveries and loading up customers with mulch, soil, plants, that kind of thing. A couple months ago I was helping unload a truck full of those big heavy bagged stones and one of the pallets collapsed on me. Crushed my foot pretty good and I ended up with a few broken bones and some nerve damage that they're still trying to figure out. I filed my workers comp claim, they approved it, and so far they've been paying for my doctor visits and giving me checks every week. It's not a ton of money but it's been enough to get by. Lately though I've had a couple people telling me that I should get a lawyer anyway because the insurance company is going to try to lowball me when it's time to settle or try to cut me off before I'm actually healed. The thing is, I've never had any issues with them so far and I don't want to make things adversarial if I don't have to. But I also don't want to be naive and end up getting taken advantage of because I didn't know any better. I've been reading some threads on here and it seems like a lot of people end up hiring someone eventually anyway. I guess I'm just wondering at what point do you know you need help? Is it better to get an on the job injury lawyer Highland NY now before anything goes wrong, or should I wait and see if things start to get difficult first? I don't want to spend money on something I might not need but I also don't want to be kicking myself six months from now when they pull something and I'm stuck playing catch-up.