Workers Compensation in Alaska

Categories: Firm NewsPublished On: January 28th, 2020

Of the more than 2,000 attorneys in Alaska, cases and matters handled run the gamut from criminal cases to transactional work to civil cases, such as personal injury claims. Within the personal injury context is a special niche known as workers compensation, something that should only be handled by specialized Ak Compensation Lawyers who know how to comply with the different rules and regulations required to achieve an award on a client’s behalf.

So what is workers compensation? Simply, when an employee is injured during the course of his or her employment, the injured party generally is barred from suing his or her employer directly. This is where Ak Compensation Lawyers come into play.

Essentially, employers are required to pay workers compensation insurance, the proceeds of which will cover any award to an injured employee.

As is the case with any car accident, slip-and-fall or other negligence claim, retaining an attorney as soon as possible after the injury is important, because there are time deadlines within which claims must be filed. Also similar is the fact that attorneys will work to gather as much evidence as possible, from the extent and types of injuries you sustained, to how it happened, to names and addresses of witnesses, to accident reports, to photographs, and so on.

Once that information is obtained, however, rather than filing a summons and complaint with the court, your Ak Compensation Lawyers will instead file a claim with the local Workers’ Compensation Board (WCB). A WCB judge will be assigned, a schedule for the exchange of information will be imposed and various hearings will take place. Following these different events, the WCB judge will issue decision regarding what monies the injured party is entitled to. Monetary awards may be issued for lost wages, medical bills and the like.

Top attorneys practicing in this field have experience filing and prosecuting these claims. Experience is important because workers compensation is a smaller community with fewer players who, as a result, are necessarily more known to each other. The attorneys with good relationships with the other players (judges, WCB staff, other attorneys, etc.) are likely to achieve a better result for the client.

Workers compensation claims are far more specialized that traditional personal injury cases, which is why it may not always be advisable to retain any “ambulance chaser” for your work-related claim. Indeed, when you are injured during the course of your employment, your workers compensation claim may be your only source of recovery, so it is important to treat it as importantly as possible.

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