What Happens After You Hire a Florida Car Accident Lawyer?

Hollywood Car Accident Lawyer | Daniel B Reinfeld, PA

Last updated: August 28, 2026

Hiring a lawyer after a Florida car accident requires careful preparation on both sides — you're trusting someone to take over one of the most stressful negotiations of your life, and your attorney is about to start building a case that will decide what your injury is actually worth. Most clients feel real relief the moment they sign a retainer agreement, followed almost immediately by a practical question: okay, now what actually happens?

Here's the honest, step-by-step answer.

Step One: The Insurance Company Stops Calling You

One of the most immediate, tangible changes is also one of the most important. Within days of being retained, your attorney sends a letter of representation to every insurance company involved — the at-fault driver's insurer and your own. From that point forward, under Florida Bar Rule of Professional Conduct 4-4.2, adjusters are barred from contacting you directly about the claim; they have to go through your lawyer.

This matters more than it might seem. Adjusters are trained to ask questions designed to get you to minimize your injuries or accept blame, often within days of the crash, while you're still in pain and before you know the full extent of what's wrong. Once you're represented, that pressure comes off you entirely.

Step Two: Immediate Investigation and Evidence Preservation

Evidence disappears fast. Surveillance footage from nearby businesses is frequently overwritten within days to a few weeks. Skid marks fade. Vehicles get repaired or totaled out before anyone photographs the damage properly. Witnesses' memories fade, and their contact information gets harder to track down the longer you wait.

Immediately after being retained, your attorney should be working to lock down:

• The crash report and any body-worn camera or dashcam footage

• 911 call recordings

• Photographs and video of the scene, vehicle damage, and visible injuries

• Witness contact information and statements

• Event data recorder ("black box") data from the vehicles involved, where relevant

• Nearby surveillance or traffic camera footage, before it's deleted

This is also when spoliation letters go out — formal notices demanding that other parties preserve evidence they might otherwise be tempted (or simply routinely scheduled) to destroy.

Step Three: Getting Your Medical Treatment on Track

Your lawyer isn't your doctor and doesn't direct your medical care. But there's a real, practical role to play here: making sure you understand Florida's PIP 14-day rule, helping you find providers if you don't already have one, and watching for treatment gaps that insurance adjusters love to seize on as "proof" your injury wasn't serious. A two-month gap in treatment because you couldn't get a timely appointment, couldn't afford a copay, or simply didn't know it mattered can do real damage to an otherwise strong claim — so flagging that risk early is part of the job.

Step Four: Sorting Out Who Pays for What

Florida's no-fault system means your own PIP coverage is typically the first payer for medical bills, usually covering 80% of reasonable medical expenses up to your policy limits. Where PIP runs out, or doesn't cover everything, your attorney helps coordinate between health insurance, MedPay, and — when needed — a letter of protection with a provider willing to treat now and be paid out of the eventual settlement. Getting this coordination wrong is one of the more common reasons injured people end up with bills in collections during a case that's still pending.

Step Five: Building the Actual Claim File

While you focus on healing, your attorney is building the record that will support your demand: medical records and billing, wage-loss documentation from your employer, and — for more serious injuries — narrative reports from treating physicians addressing causation and prognosis, and input from economists or life-care planners when future damages are significant. This stage is unglamorous and takes real time, but it's the difference between a demand that gets taken seriously and one that gets a lowball response.

Step Six: The Demand and Negotiation

Once you've reached maximum medical improvement — or your case otherwise supports it — your attorney sends a demand package to the insurance company and negotiations begin. This is where experience shows. An attorney who spent years on the insurance-defense side of these cases, as Dan Reinfeld did before representing injured people, knows exactly how adjusters are trained to evaluate claims, what reserves they're likely working with, and where there's actual room to negotiate versus where an offer is a lowball starting point designed to see if you'll take it.

Step Seven: Litigation, If It Comes to That

Most cases resolve without a lawsuit. But if the insurance company won't offer fair value or disputes liability, your attorney files suit — which starts the discovery process, sets up mediation, and, if necessary, takes the case to trial. Filing suit also protects your rights against Florida's statute of limitations, which is now two years from the date of the accident for most car accident claims (down from four years, for crashes occurring on or after March 24, 2023) — a deadline your attorney is tracking from day one, regardless of how negotiations are going.

What You Should Avoid Once You've Hired an Attorney

A few habits can genuinely hurt a case that's otherwise being handled well:

• Don't give a recorded statement to any insurance company — including your own — without talking to your attorney first.

• Don't post about the accident, your injuries, or your activities on social media. Insurance defense teams routinely search for exactly this.

• Don't sign anything an insurance company sends you — including medical authorizations — without your attorney reviewing it first.

• Don't skip medical appointments, even ones that feel unnecessary once you start feeling better.

• Don't discuss your case with the other driver, their insurer, or their attorney. Let your lawyer handle every conversation.

Frequently Asked Questions

How quickly after hiring a lawyer will something actually happen on my case? Investigation and evidence preservation typically begin within days. The bigger milestones — demand, negotiation, possibly litigation — take longer because they depend on your medical treatment reaching a stable point first.

Will I have to go to court? Most Florida car accident cases settle without a trial. Litigation becomes necessary when the insurance company won't negotiate fairly, but even filed lawsuits usually resolve at or before mediation.

Do I still need to deal with the insurance company myself for anything? No. Once you're represented, all communication should go through your attorney — that's one of the main points of hiring one.

Call Today. Discuss Directly With Dan.

Hiring the right attorney after a Florida car accident requires careful preparation — and that preparation starts the moment you call. When you contact Reinfeld Law, you speak directly with Dan Reinfeld, an attorney with more than 25 years of experience, including time spent on the insurance-defense side of these exact cases — experience he now uses on your behalf. Dan offers flexible consultation options, including phone, Zoom, hospital, and home visits, for clients who can't easily get to an office. Consultations are free, and you pay nothing unless he recovers money for you. Evening and weekend appointments are available, because injuries — and insurance company tactics — don't wait for business hours. Call (954) 923-6110 today to discuss your Florida car accident claim directly with Dan.