Our Practice Areas
Rafi, Brown, and Stokes has successfully handled hundreds of the following types of cases:
- Car and motorcycle accidents
- Semi-truck and box truck crashes
- Bicycle and pedestrian collisions
- Workplace injuries
- Wrongful Death
- Slip-and-fall accidents
- Lack of security at apartment complexes, hotels, and businesses
- Dog bites
- Medical malpractice
- Defective consumer products
Why Should You Choose Rafi, Brown, and Stokes?
Rafi, Brown, and Stokes specializes in personal injury. By focusing on one area and not stretching ourselves too thin, we’re able to put all of our energy towards clients, and we believe it shows. We get injured people the compensation they deserve. We’re compassionate and understand that many people aren’t treated fairly by their insurance companies or by the person or company that caused their injury. When you hire an attorney from Rafi, Brown, and Stokes, you can rest assured that they’ll put 100% effort into your case. Here are just a few more reasons to feel confident in hiring Rafi, Brown, and Stokes.
We Work Hard To Get You Maximum Compensation.
At Rafi, Brown, and Stokes, we work hard for our clients to get the absolute maximum compensation available.
Compensation can’t undo the accident, but it can alleviate the financial hardship that often accompanies a serious injury.
We Prepare Each Case For Trial.
Some cases don’t need a trial, but we treat every case like it will.
We prepare every detail and facet of the case so that we are prepared if we need to take your case to trial. We’ll make sure that we have everything, including witnesses and evidence, so that when and if we go to trial, we’re fully prepared to win.
We Help You Find The Best Treatment For Your Injury.
Regarding your personal injury case, we don’t stop with legal assistance. Our job and goal is to help injured people in every way we can.
We will help you find the best treatment for your injury so that you can focus on healing and getting the care you need while we focus on winning your case. Since we specialize in personal injury, we have plenty of insight into how to make the best recovery.
We Only Get Paid If You Win.
We’re not here to drain injured people’s finances or make things more challenging. We only get paid if you win. This means that you don’t have to worry about how to pay for a personal injury lawyer or forgo legal representation because you can’t afford it.
If you win your case, you’ll be awarded compensation allowing us to get paid. If you don’t win, we don’t get paid. You can get the high-quality legal representation you deserve without incurring debt or adding to your financial burden.
Did You Suffer One Of These Injuries In An Accident?
Many different types of injuries can occur in accidents, and this is by no means an exhaustive list. Whether your injury is on the list below or not, if you suffered an injury in an accident, a Gwinnett County personal injury lawyer can help.
Back Injuries
Back injuries are common in car and truck accidents and slips and falls. These injuries can cause mild to severe pain or discomfort, but a severe injury could cause permanent disability.
An injured back can seriously limit your mobility. It can be difficult or painful to bend over, turn around, sit, drive, sleep, stand, or do other essential tasks.
Another type of injury that has the best chance of healing if treated immediately is a back injury. If your back is straining, continuing to move around like you usually do can worsen the damage or pain.
If you believe you have a back injury, you should go to the doctor as soon as possible.
Neck Injuries
A neck injury can range from subtle discomfort or tension to intense shooting pain and mobility issues. A neck injury usually occurs due to strain or trauma to the neck area, making it difficult to turn your head or look up and down.
A common cause of neck injury is whiplash in auto accidents. Whiplash happens when your head is thrust backward and then forward suddenly faster than the neck is prepared for.
Neck injuries can cause mild to severe pain in the neck and shoulders. Whiplash is usually treatable and can heal with time, rest, and medication.
Broken Bones
Broken bones (fractures) are some of the most common injuries in any accident. A fracture is a break in a continuous piece of bone and can range in severity from minor hairline fractures to fully separated breaks.
Broken bones need immediate medical attention to reduce the chance of worsening the injury. Bone infections are severe and could lead to sepsis, a deadly condition that must be treated right away.
For a non-infected fracture, you may need casts, splints, crutches, surgery, or even a wheelchair to heal correctly.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
A traumatic brain injury is an injury that occurs as a result of a sudden blow or trauma to the head and impacts the brain’s functioning. A brain injury can range from a mild concussion to severe and permanent brain damage. TBIs may occur as an open or closed brain injury, depending on if the skull was penetrated or not during the accident.
TBIs are serious injuries and should be treated as such. The brain controls every movement, thought, and action your body makes, so damage to the brain can cause serious dysfunction. A TBI may come with side effects such as blurry vision, confusion, fatigue, and trouble focusing on tasks.
If you hit your head in your accident and believe you may have a brain injury, seek medical care as soon as possible. Early medical attention can prevent further damage to the brain. Most of the time, the treatment for brain injuries is medication, rest, and suspended use of screens.
Spinal Cord Injury (SCI)
A spinal cord injury has the potential to be very serious. An SCI is an injury that occurs as a result of trauma to the spinal canal, cord, or surrounding nerves.
The spinal cord contains most of the nerves required to move your body, so damage to the cord can result in intense pain and mobility issues. Depending on where the injury is on the spinal cord, you could face paralysis in some or all of your limbs.
Paraplegia, the paralysis of both legs and quadriplegia, the paralysis of both arms and both legs, are both possible outcomes of a spinal cord injury.
Injuries to the spinal cord should be treated immediately or as soon as possible. Continuing to move around as usual with a spinal cord injury can put stress on the injury and cause further damage or paralysis. You could lose the use or seriously reduce the feeling or strength of your limbs because of a spinal cord injury.
Treatments may include surgery, assistive devices, medication, rehab, or physical therapy.
Burns
Some accidents can result in burns from chemical exposure or fire. Burns can cause painful blistering, swelling, and infections ranging from mild to severe.
More severe burns can cause permanent and significant disfigurement and can be distressing to the injured person.
If you experienced a burn due to an accident, seek medical attention as soon as possible to maximize the potential healing of the burns.
Emotional Trauma
Emotional trauma is one of the most common results of traumatic accidents, and while it is a psychological injury, it is not talked about enough.
Victims of emotional trauma sometimes feel embarrassed and fail to reach out for help. If you experienced emotional trauma after an accident or injury, you should not be ashamed. Reaching out for help does not show weakness; it shows strength.
A psychologist, therapist, or counselor can help you work through the fear, anxiety, depression, or panic that you might be experiencing. Most emotional trauma can be easier to manage over time with treatment, but some do have lasting effects. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder occurs when a traumatic event causes a person to have strong mental, emotional, or physical reactions to reminders of the trauma.
This can manifest itself in episodes of intense fear, panic, anger, aggression, shock, or anxiety. Post-traumatic stress disorder is a protected disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. PTSD can be helped with therapy and sometimes medication, and people with the disorder can go on to live whole and productive lives.
What Is My Case Worth?
One of the first questions new clients ask our Gwinnett County personal injury lawyers is, “What’s my case worth?” Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Several things determine how much a personal injury case is worth. The first is the scope and severity of your injuries, their impact on your life, and the cost to treat the injuries.
The second is negligence. How much of the injury or accident was the other party’s fault? The amount of negligence they are held responsible for will dictate how much compensation they can recover. This negligence is proved by evidence, which is the third component.
Evidence Plays A Crucial Role In Compensation
Evidence is necessary to win a personal injury case, but the quality determines the amount of compensation you can recover. Any evidence you can get regarding the circumstances of your accident, injury, or illness is essential to document and include in your case. Examples can include medical bills, prognoses from your doctor, photos or videos of the accident, text messages, pictures or videos of your injury, and more.
The more evidence you have, and the stronger the evidence, the easier it is to prove negligence on the other party’s part.
What Are Potential Damages I Can Claim?
Damages determine compensation. When you recover damages, you are compensated for hardships you faced due to an accident or injury by the negligent party. These hardships can be economic or non-economic. Keep reading to learn the difference and see examples of types of damages in both categories.
Economic Damages
The first category of damages is economic damages, which are payments made to the injured person to compensate for financial hardships.
If you incurred a financial burden due to your injury, you may be able to recover economic damages. A few examples of economic damages are listed below:
Medical Expenses
Injuries, no matter how serious, come with medical expenses. The initial hospital visit after the accident, medication costs, follow-up treatment, etc., all come with a price tag.
However, the more severe the injury, the more expensive the medical expenses are. An injury that results in a permanent disability can cause you to have medical expenses for the rest of your life. You may require assistive devices like wheelchairs or powerchairs, chair lifts for stairs in your home, a live-in nurse, long-term medications, or regular visits with a specialist, to name a few.
These medical expenses add up. It would be best not to deal with the crushing financial burden of an injury caused by someone else’s negligence or actions.
Lost Income
Whether you are only out of work for a little while or you are permanently unable to work due to a disability, the income you lost can cause a financial burden on you and your family.
You lost that income because you were injured due to someone else’s negligence, so you should not be responsible for bearing that financial burden.
Loss of Earning Potential
While similar to lost income, loss of earning potential implies a permanent change in how much money you can make in the future. If your injury left you permanently disabled or unable to function like you used to, you may not be able to do the same type of job that you did before the injury, or you may not be able to work as much or as often as you used to.
Sometimes, you may not be able to work anymore at all. While disability benefits from the government can help any disabled person who can’t work to pay their bills, recovering damages for loss of earning potential is different in that it compensates you for the money you could have made.
Non-Economic Damages
The second category of damages is non-economic damages. Non-economic damages are payments made to an injured person to compensate them for hardships that are not financial but result from their injury.
While compensation cannot solve non-economic hardships, it is necessary to attempt to bring justice to the injured victims. Keep reading to see typical examples of these types of damages.
Emotional Distress
One typical example of non-economic damages is emotional distress. Being in a traumatic accident that changes your life can easily cause lasting psychological distress.
The emotional burden you are bearing as a result of an injury that was someone else’s fault is not fair. Money will not take that distress away, but non-economic damages can help you afford quality treatment, such as counseling.
Pain and Suffering
Another type of non-economic damage that can be recovered is pain and suffering. An injury can be excruciating, both at the time it occurs and in the future, and unfortunately, there is no way to take that pain away.
The suffering that you may experience as a result of your injury and the treatments and surgeries that may come along with it may not be entirely financial. Still, these hardships are just as significant as financial burdens.
Make Sure You Meet the Filing Deadline!
If you were injured in an accident, don’t wait to file a personal injury case. The statute of limitations for personal injury cases in Georgia is two years, which means you have two years from the day of the accident to file a personal injury lawsuit.
But it would be best if you didn’t wait two years and file at the last moment. Reach out to a Gwinnett County personal injury lawyer from Rafi, Brown, and Stokes as soon as possible before your medical bills start piling up or the loss of income becomes an unbearable financial burden.
The sooner you start with an attorney and file your lawsuit, the sooner you can recover compensation and move on with your life.
Hurt In An accident? Rafi, Brown, and Stokes Is Here for You.
Rafi, Brown, and Stokes is proud to represent injured people in Gwinnett County. If you were hurt in an accident, we want to help you.
Our experienced Atlanta personal injury lawyers are ready to help you obtain justice for the wrongs you have faced. The negligent party who caused your accident and injury should be held responsible.
Let us help you get the maximum amount of compensation available. Call (404) 800-9933 to schedule a free case consultation.
