The attorneys at Cooney & Conway have been representing victims of serious injuries caused by the negligence of others for decades. We have successfully represented thousands of people who have been injured through no fault of their own and provided justice to our clients in their moment of need. The attorneys at Cooney & Conway are with our clients every step of the way and strive to provide vigorous and ethical representation to help our clients rebuild their lives.

 

Serious Injury Attorneys in Chicago, IL

Cooney & Conway is a leading Chicago law firm that represents victims of: 

 Our lawyers have decades of experience and a long history of successful representation in many different practice areas.

 

What is a Serious Injury?

A serious injury is defined legally as a personal injury that results in particular outcomes such as disfigurement, dismemberment, death, or other injuries (including those listed below). The serious injury legal definition covers some possible permanent issues as well as non-permanent injuries that significantly impact the injured party's daily life.

Under the law, non-permanent injuries must affect the injured person's day-to-day life and functionality for a specific duration of time. The best way to know whether a non-permanent injury might be covered in a claim is to talk with an experienced personal injury attorney

Types of Serious Injury

It is often difficult for individuals to determine whether they can pursue a serious injury claim for their injury. Fundamentally, serious injuries have permanent or long-term impacts on the lives of those injured and/or the lives of their families. Due to the enormous scope of how an individual’s life can be affected by a serious injury, a wide variety of afflictions can be categorized as such, including fatal/near-fatal injury and catastrophic injury. The following list provides a few examples of common serious injuries.

  • Amputations
  • Blindness and eye injuries
  • Broken bones or fractures
  • Burns
  • Cognitive injuries
  • Coma
  • Deafness
  • Death
  • Disfigurement
  • Dismemberment
  • Head, neck, or spinal injuries
  • Knee, hip, and joint injuries
  • Loss of a fetus
  • Loss or limitation of an organ or bodily member
  • Mobility impairment
  • Nerve damage
  • Paralysis
  • Poisoning
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
  • Traumatic brain injuries (TBI)

 

What is a Catastrophic Injury?

A catastrophic injury is a serious injury that results in a permanent and devastating change to a victim’s life. While your attorney can seek punitive action without a specific diagnosis for typical serious injury claims, a medical diagnosis is needed to claim an injury as catastrophic. Due to the dire nature of catastrophic injuries and the enduring effects they have upon individuals, your attorney will use this diagnosis to claim further compensation on your behalf in an effort to ensure you receive all necessary financial support.

A catastrophic injury imparts a lifelong or long-term impairment, disfigurement, or disability upon the victim. The victim’s ability to perform daily tasks or operate independently is often severely limited or impossible due to a catastrophic injury. These injuries can lead to a need for rehabilitative therapy, permanent implementation of a medical device, surgery, supplemental medication, need of a caretaker, or dramatic living modifications to support the individual’s needs. There are three main ways catastrophic injuries are categorized:

  1. Cognitive: TBI, general injuries to the brain, and cognitive function disability. These can include trouble with speaking/communication, memory recall, memory forming, ability to reason, ability to focus/concentrate, reading social cues, etc. Hearing loss and sight loss can also often happen in conjunction with TBI.
  2. Physical: Injuries affecting the body, limbs, and organs. These include dismemberment, amputations, disfigurement, multiple broken bones/orthopedic injury, severe burns, etc.
  3. Spinal: Injuries that permanently affect mobility and pain levels in victims. These include partial paralysis, quadriplegia, nerve damage, chronic pain, etc.

 

How Serious and Fatal Injuries Can Occur

No amount of planning will ever be able to protect us entirely from rogue accidents. We never expect to be the victim of a head-on collision when our light was green or to fall down the freshly-mopped concrete stairs at work. Unfortunately, there is an insurmountable number of ways that serious injuries can occur.

To help you to determine if legal recourse is available following a serious injury, we have compiled a list of common causes of injury seen in claims court.

  • Transport accidents, including boat, motor vehicle, rideshare, aviation, bicycle, etc.
  • Workplace accidents, including faulty equipment, electrocution, toxic spills, lack of training, lack of PPE, etc.

 

Should You File a Claim or Lawsuit?

Cooney & Conway is a leading Chicago law firm that represents victims of: 

Our lawyers have decades of experience and a long history of successful representation in many different practice areas.