If another person's carelessness left you hurt, a New Jersey personal injury lawyer can carry the claim while you concentrate on getting better.
At Reinartz Law Firm, we represent injured people and injured workers from our office at Court Plaza South in Hackensack, and we take cases across Bergen County and the rest of the state. We know how this stretch of time feels, with bills arriving faster than answers and an adjuster calling before you have even seen a specialist.
You do not have to work it out by yourself. Call us at (201) 289-8614 for a free consultation and tell us what happened.
Our founder, Richard Reinartz, spent more than a decade as a trial lawyer at two large national firms before opening this practice. That work sat on the other side of cases like yours, so he learned firsthand how insurers put a value on a claim and where they look for soft spots. We use that knowledge for people now, not companies.
Why Injured New Jersey Families Come to Our Firm
We keep the practice small on purpose. When you call, you are not passed through layers of case managers before anyone with a law license opens your file.
- Insight from the other side of the table. More than 10 years defending claims at two large national firms taught our founder how insurers build a file, so we prepare cases with those arguments already anticipated.
- Two co-equal practice lines. We handle motor vehicle and injury claims alongside New Jersey workers' compensation, so an injury that touches both systems stays with one team instead of being split between two firms.
- Real availability. Someone can be reached around the clock, and consultations cost you nothing.
- Roots in Bergen County. Our office sits on Main Street a short walk from the Bergen County Justice Center, the courthouse where many of our clients' cases are heard.
- Trial preparation from the first week. We build every file as though it will be tried, and that posture changes how seriously a claim gets treated.
- Direct contact with your attorney. Richard handles the day-to-day work of building cases himself.
None of that is a promise about a result, and no honest lawyer can make one. It is a promise about attention and preparation. If you want to hear how we would approach your situation in particular, call (201) 289-8614 and ask us.
What Does a New Jersey Personal Injury Lawyer Actually Do?
A New Jersey personal injury lawyer investigates how you were hurt, establishes who is accountable, documents what the injury has cost you, and presses the responsible party's insurer to pay that full amount. Most of that work happens long before anyone mentions a courtroom.
Our first weeks on a case tend to look the same. We pull the police report, scene photographs, and any nearby video before it gets overwritten. We gather your medical records and speak with your treating doctors, so the file reflects your actual recovery rather than a summary written by someone who never met you.
From there, we identify every source of coverage, including the policies people commonly miss. Underinsured motorist coverage on your own auto policy is one that gets overlooked all the time. We also take over the correspondence, so the phone stops ringing at your house.
Specifically, the work falls into four stages: investigation, treatment and documentation, demand and negotiation, and filing suit if the offer does not reflect the harm. Not every case reaches the fourth stage. Every case gets prepared as though it will.
Injury and Accident Cases We Handle Statewide
Personal injury is the starting point for the areas we work in most. Each one below has its own deadlines, its own proof problems, and its own insurance dynamics.
Car, truck, and motorcycle collisions
Crashes on Route 4, Route 17, Interstate 80, and the local streets feeding the Route 46 corridor make up the largest share of the injury claims we see. New Jersey ties your right to sue for pain and suffering to the coverage election on your own auto policy, which is a detail most drivers have never read closely.
A New Jersey car accident attorney can pull your declarations page and tell you which option you selected and what it means for your claim.
New Jersey workers' compensation
If you were hurt doing your job, workers' compensation runs on a separate track from an injury lawsuit, with its own notice requirements and its own hearings before a judge of compensation. The New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development administers the system, and benefits generally cover medical treatment, a portion of lost wages, and permanent disability.
Talking to a New Jersey workers' compensation lawyer early tends to matter because the employer's carrier usually controls which doctor you see.
Catastrophic and fatal injuries
Some injuries change the shape of a life rather than interrupting it. Spinal cord damage, amputation, severe burns, and traumatic brain injury all require proof of what care will cost decades from now, not just what it cost last month.
We build those cases with treating physicians, rehabilitation specialists, and life care planners, and our catastrophic injury attorneys in New Jersey handle the medical documentation that these claims live and die on.
When an injury becomes a wrongful death case
When someone does not survive, New Jersey allows the family to bring a claim through the estate rather than individually. This is different work, and it is slower and gentler work. A wrongful death attorney in New Jersey handles the surrogate's court appointment before the claim itself can move.
Pedestrians, cyclists, and rideshare passengers
Hackensack is a walkable downtown wrapped in high-volume roads, and that combination produces a steady stream of pedestrian and bicycle cases. Rideshare crashes add a layer, because coverage depends on whether the driver had a passenger in the car at the moment of impact.
If your situation does not fit neatly into any of these, call anyway. Part of a first conversation is simply figuring out which system your claim belongs in.
How Long Do I Have to File a Personal Injury Claim in New Jersey?
In most New Jersey injury cases, you have two years from the date you were hurt to file a lawsuit, under N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2. Miss that window and the claim is usually gone, however strong it was.
Several situations shorten or shift that deadline. If a public body is involved, meaning a city, a county, a school district, or a transit agency, the New Jersey Tort Claims Act generally requires a formal notice of claim within 90 days under N.J.S.A. 59:8-8. Workers' compensation has its own clock and its own notice rules, entirely separate from the two-year period.
Deadlines also move for children. New Jersey pauses the limitations period for a minor under N.J.S.A. 2A:14-21, so a young person's own claim generally does not begin running until they turn 18.
Because the right deadline depends on the specific facts, the safest move is to have someone confirm it early rather than assume. Call, and we will tell you which clock applies to you.
What if I Was Partly at Fault for the Accident?
You can still recover in New Jersey even when you were partly at fault, as long as your share is not greater than the fault of the parties you are claiming against. New Jersey follows a modified comparative negligence rule under N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1, and your recovery is reduced by your own percentage.
Here is the plain version. If a jury values the harm at $100,000 and assigns you 20% of the fault, you recover $80,000. If it assigns you 51%, you recover nothing at all.
That threshold explains why insurers work so quickly to cast you as the careless one. The model instruction New Jersey judges read to juries lays out exactly how fault gets divided, and the percentages are argued hard.
An offhand comment at the scene or a photo posted the same week can resurface a year later as an admission. This is one of the better reasons to route adjuster calls through a lawyer instead of handling them yourself.
Where New Jersey Injury Claims Get Complicated
Some claims are straightforward, and some carry a wrinkle specific to New Jersey that changes the whole approach. Three come up constantly in our practice.
The verbal threshold on your auto policy
New Jersey drivers choose between two options when they buy coverage, and one of them limits the right to sue for pain and suffering unless the injury meets a defined category.
Most people select the cheaper option without considering what they give up. If that applies to you, the case turns on medical proof that your injury fits one of the qualifying descriptions, which means the records have to be built carefully from the start.
More than one party is at fault
A single crash often involves a driver, a trucking company, a maintenance contractor, and sometimes a municipality that let a hazard sit. New Jersey requires a jury to assign a percentage to each one, and a defendant found 60% or more responsible can be made to pay the whole award.
Identifying every accountable party early is therefore not thoroughness for its own sake. It is often what determines whether there is enough coverage to make you whole.
Claims against a public entity
If your injury involves a county road, a public building, a school, or a transit vehicle, the rules tighten considerably. The notice deadline is short, the standard of proof is higher, and certain categories of damages are limited by statute. These are the cases where waiting a few months to call is genuinely costly.
Any one of these can quietly reshape what a claim is worth. We look for all three in a first review, before they become problems.
How Do We Build the Value of an Injury Claim?
We build value by documenting the full reach of the injury rather than tallying the receipts. An adjuster's first number almost always reflects only the treatment already billed, because that is the cheapest way to look at a person's life.
The categories New Jersey law recognizes include the following:
- Medical care already provided, and the care your doctors expect you will still need.
- Wages you have lost, plus reduced earning capacity if you cannot go back to the same work.
- Pain, suffering, and the loss of activities that used to make up your ordinary week.
- Home modifications, assistive equipment, and in-home help in serious cases.
- The effect on your marriage and family relationships, which New Jersey treats as a real loss.
Proving the future half of that list is where cases are won or lost. We spend our time on treating-physician narratives, vocational analysis, and, in serious matters, a life care plan that puts a defensible number on decades of care.
We will also tell you where your case is weak. You are better served by an honest read than a flattering one.
Working With Our NJ Personal Injury Attorneys
The first conversation is free and carries no obligation. You describe what happened, we ask questions, and we tell you whether we think there is a claim worth pursuing.
If we take the case, we work on a contingency fee. That means our fee comes out of the recovery, so you are not paying us by the hour while you are out of work.
From there, you should expect updates without having to chase them, plain answers about timing, and a clear explanation before any decision that is yours to make. Settling or not settling is always your call, and we make sure you have what you need to make it.
FAQs Answered by Our Personal Injury Lawyer in New Jersey
These are the questions we hear most often in first calls that were not already covered above.
How much does it cost to hire a personal injury attorney in NJ?
We work on a contingency fee, so there is no hourly bill and no retainer up front. Our fee is a percentage of what we recover, and we explain the number and how case costs are handled before you sign anything. The initial consultation is free either way.
Should I accept the insurance company's first offer?
An early offer usually arrives before anyone knows how your recovery will actually go, which is precisely why it arrives early. Once you sign a release, the claim is closed, even if you need surgery three months later. It is worth having someone look at the offer against your medical picture before you respond.
What if the driver who hit me had no insurance?
Your own auto policy may include uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage that steps in when the at-fault driver has none or has too little. Many people carry it without realizing it. We review your declarations page as one of the first things we do.
Do I have to go to court?
Most injury cases resolve without a trial, and many resolve without you ever appearing. If your case is filed, you would likely sit for a deposition and possibly a medical examination, and we prepare you thoroughly for both. We will tell you well in advance if a trial becomes likely.
How long will my case take?
A straightforward claim can settle in several months once your treatment finishes. A disputed case, or one involving serious permanent injury, often runs a year or more, partly because we will not put a value on your future before your doctors can. Rushing to a number generally costs the client.
Can I still bring a claim if I did not go to the hospital right away?
Yes, though a gap in treatment gives the insurer something to argue about. Plenty of injuries, especially soft tissue damage and concussions, announce themselves days later. What matters is getting evaluated now and being straightforward about the timeline.
Will hiring a lawyer make the process more adversarial?
In our experience, it usually makes it more orderly. Once counsel is involved, the direct calls to you stop, and the exchange moves to documents and evidence. Our job is accountability for what happened, not hostility toward anyone.
Talk With a New Jersey Personal Injury Lawyer Today
You have been through something you did not choose, and you should not have to become an insurance specialist to be treated fairly. Let us take that part.
Call Reinartz Law Firm at (201) 289-8614 for a free consultation, any hour, or reach us through our contact page. We are at Court Plaza South, West Wing, 21 Main St., Suite 205, Hackensack, NJ 07601, and we serve clients throughout Bergen County and across New Jersey.
Tell us what happened. We will tell you honestly where you stand.
The Reinartz Law Firm - Hackensack Office
Court Plaza South - West Wing
21 Main St Suite 205,
Hackensack, NJ 07601
