Workers' Compensation Law Firms

How to choose a workers' compensation law firm

A workers' compensation claim is not a lawsuit, and comparing these firms the way you would compare injury firms will point you at the wrong things. Nobody has to prove the employer was at fault, and in exchange you ordinarily cannot sue the employer at all. What the system pays for is medical treatment and a share of lost wages. It does not pay for pain and suffering, however badly you were hurt. Four things are worth weighing instead, and the first is the one most people expect to matter and does not.

The fee is approved by a judge, not negotiated with you

In New York no fee in a compensation case is enforceable unless the Workers' Compensation Board approves it, under section 24 of the Workers' Compensation Law. It comes out of the award rather than out of your pocket, the carrier pays it directly to the attorney, and anything above one thousand dollars needs a written application on the Board's own form. A firm that quotes you a percentage is describing a decision that is not its to make.

That removes price from the comparison almost entirely, which is why the rest of this page is about hearings, communication and whether the firm sees the second case described below.

Ask whether they bring the third-party case

Compensation pays medical bills and part of your wages. Where somebody other than your employer contributed to the accident, a driver, a property owner, a general contractor, the maker of a machine that had no guard on it, a separate negligence action can be brought against them, and that one does pay for pain and suffering. On a New York construction site sections 240 and 241 of the Labor Law put specific duties on owners and contractors, which is why falls from height and scaffold collapses are so often two cases rather than one.

Not every compensation practice brings those, and not every injury practice handles the compensation claim alongside them. Ask directly which of the two the firm does, and who handles the other if it does not.

Your doctor, their doctor, and the hearing

You choose who treats you, but only from providers the Board has authorised to treat injured workers, with emergencies the exception. The insurer is entitled to send you for an examination of its own, and a report from that examination is the ordinary reason benefits are reduced or stopped. What happens next is a hearing before a law judge, so a firm's real skill in this area is how it handles medical evidence and how often it is in that room. Ask.

Being fired for filing is a separate claim

Section 120 makes it unlawful for an employer to fire you, refuse to reinstate you or otherwise discriminate against you because you claimed compensation or testified in someone else's case. It is filed separately, on form DC-120, within two years, and the Board can order your job back with the pay you lost. It is worth knowing this exists before you decide whether to file at all.