As Portland Oregon borders Vancouver Washington, Oregon residents and Washington State residents get in auto accidents with one another. Most auto insurance policies have Personal Injury Protection (PIP), in which their auto accident insurance pays for auto accident-related medical bills up to the limit of the PIP policy regardless of fault. PIP allows those who are injured to receive medical treatment immediately regardless of fault. Even of the PIP beneficiary was not at fault, PIP allows the innocent person in an an auto accident to receive treatment without the necessity of settling their case against an at-fault driver, which can take months or years. Sometimes clients need an attorney to force their insurance company to pay pay wrongfully denied medical bills (PIP benefits). A person’s auto insurance is usually based out of their state of residence. This means that any breach of contract lawsuit for wrongful denial of PIP benefits should be brought in a person’s state of residence. However, any lawsuit against an at-fault driver is usually brought in the state in which the accident occurred. Thus, if you were in an accident in Oregon but live in Washington or vice versa, Clark Law & Associates can handle your entire auto accident case.
Attorney, Jennie Clark, become interested in auto accidents after she was rear-ended three times in one year by at-fault drivers early in her Portland, Oregon legal career. Her worst accident, involved a drunk driver. At the time she was hit by a drunk driver, she had a caseload of criminal defense cases, which was comprised mostly of drunk driving cases, many of which she later tried to a jury. As a result of her injuries, Ms. Clark transitioned into handling personal injury cases while she healed from her injuries. Long Story of How Attorney Clark Transitioned to Handling Auto Accident Cases
Because most civil cases settle, most civil attorneys do not try as many cases to a jury trial as criminal defense attorneys. Ms. Clark now utilizes the trial experience she learned from handling criminal defense cases to fight for people who have been injured due to no fault of their own. Through her chronic pain recovery process, she learned about the treatment options available to those recovering from accident-related injuries. She hired an unnamed attorney for all three of her auto accidents who failed to return repeated phone calls and who negligently allowed her case to be dismissed after it was filed. Her unnamed attorney was subsequently sanctioned by the Oregon State Bar for his failure to properly represent multiple clients. Thus, Attorney Clark knows first hand how an injury can disrupt one’s life and work. She has largely recovered from multiple injuries due to an interdisciplinary approach from multiple treatment providers. She tries to provide her clients with better understanding and representation than she received from her attorney when she was injured. Ms. Clark understands the auto accident recovery process from the lens of a patient and a trial lawyer.
Attorney Brendan Burke has also been in a vehicle accident and juggled medical appointments and work in order to recover from his auto accident. He much prefers working long hours to recovering from an auto accident.
Call us at (503) 238-1010. We are experienced at pain and suffering from auto accidents and experienced at being attorneys too.