Los Angeles personal injury lawyerThe insurance company has lawyers. Now you do.

What happens now if you were hurt in Los Angeles?

We represent people hurt in Los Angeles and the families of people killed here. Three things change from city to city, and each one changes what you should do this week: which agency wrote your report, which deadline applies to your claim, and where the case is filed if it does not settle. This page answers those three for Los Angeles. The law for each kind of case, from car accidents to wrongful death, is on the practice pages linked at the bottom, and we take the insurance company's calls from the first day, including the request for a recorded statement.

Who has your Los Angeles crash report?

The Los Angeles Police Department is organized in geographic divisions, and the division that took the report is where the report is obtained. The freeways belong to the California Highway Patrol. Its Southern Division headquarters in Glendale does not serve the public, so a report request goes to the Area office that worked the crash: Central Los Angeles, West Los Angeles, West Valley or South Los Angeles. Asking the wrong office costs weeks, and the report is the document the adjuster reads before anything you wrote.

What should I do in the first week?

1. 1
   Treatment first

   See a doctor the same day and list every part of your body that hurts. If you have no coverage, we arrange care on a lien. A gap in treatment is the first thing an adjuster argues.

2. 2
   Say nothing to the other insurer

   You owe a recorded statement to nobody but your own carrier. Give the other adjuster our number instead.

3. 3
   The report and every insurer

   We pull the LAPD division report or the CHP Area report, identify every policy that may pay, and send preservation letters for video and vehicle data before it is overwritten.

4. 4
   The district and the deadline

   We fix the court district from the cross streets and calendar the two year date, or the six month date if a public agency is involved, in the first week.

How long do I have to sue in Los Angeles?

A statute of limitations is the deadline to file suit. Miss it and the case ends on the calendar rather than on the merits. Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1 gives two years for an injury or a death caused by another's wrongful act or neglect. A government claim is the written claim you must present before suing a public agency, and Government Code section 911.2(a) gives six months. After a written rejection, section 945.6 gives six months to sue. The rest are in our table of California injury deadlines.

What if a city street, a signal or a bus was part of it?

Which court hears a Los Angeles injury case?

The one where the crash or fall happened, not the one nearest your home. Los Angeles Superior Court Local Rule 2.3(a)(1)(A) sends every unlimited civil injury or wrongful death case to the judicial district "where the incident arose." The court has 12 geographic districts, and the city spans several of them. A crash in Woodland Hills and a crash downtown are filed in different courthouses. We run the cross streets through the court's locator before anything is filed.

Does every Los Angeles case go to Stanley Mosk?

No. Stanley Mosk takes the Central District. The Personal Injury Hub at the Spring Street Courthouse is gone; under the court's December 14, 2023 notice to attorneys, Central District personal injury cases are assigned to independent calendar departments at Stanley Mosk. The assignments above come from the court's filing locator searched for Los Angeles 90012, and the address from Local Rule 2.2(b). Court assignments and department numbers change, and we confirm the current one before filing.

Which hospital will I be taken to?

It depends on where the crash happened. The California EMS Authority list updated October 22, 2025 names four Level I adult trauma centers in Los Angeles County, and three are in the city: Los Angeles General Medical Center, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The fourth, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, is in Torrance. Children's Hospital Los Angeles is a Level I pediatric center, and California Hospital Medical Center downtown is a Level II center.

Why does the hospital matter to my claim?

Because every hospital is a chart, a billing office and, often, a lien. A transfer between two trauma centers means a second chart, a second billing office and a second lien. A lien is a hospital's or insurer's right to be paid out of your settlement before you are, and resolving it is the difference between a gross number and what you keep. We collect the records from every facility that treated you and negotiate every lien down before the check is cut. The addresses and bed counts come from the state facility file.

Was your crash on a freeway?

Then the California Highway Patrol wrote the report, from the Area office in the table above, and the crash is left out of the city's rankings below. These are Caltrans' current published annual average daily traffic counts at points inside the city, from the Caltrans traffic census dataset. The dataset does not label a count year, so we do not attach one.

When a commercial truck is involved, start with our Los Angeles truck accident lawyer page and the guide on hours of service and driver fatigue, because the trucking company's evidence has its own retention clock. A crash in an Uber or Lyft has its own insurance periods, covered on the rideshare accident page.

How dangerous are Los Angeles streets?

Both numbers are true. In 2023, 8,116 people were killed or injured in crashes in the city, 1,432 of them on foot, by the California Office of Traffic Safety's count. Measured as a rate, the picture changes. The Office ranks each city against others in its population group using crash data, population and daily vehicle miles, where rank 1 is the worst rate in the group. Los Angeles is in Group A, the state's 15 largest cities.

What do the rankings leave out?

Freeway crashes. The Office of Traffic Safety states the caveat itself: a crash report taken by the CHP on a road with shared jurisdiction does not count against the city. Crashes on the 405, the 10 and the 101 sit outside these totals, so the real exposure is higher than the table shows. The county tells the same story at scale: Los Angeles County had 58,758 people killed or injured in 2023 and ranks 58 of 58 for total fatal and injury, per the county rankings. If you were hit while walking, our Los Angeles pedestrian accident lawyer page covers the right of way rules, and cyclists should read the bicycle accident page.

What have cases like yours settled for?

Each of those opened with a first offer that was a fraction of the result, because a first offer is a negotiating position taken before treatment ends. We publish no average, since an average blends a sprained neck with a spinal fusion, and every case depends on its own facts, injuries and insurance coverage. The rest are on case results, and client accounts are on reviews.

Do I need a lawyer for a minor accident in Los Angeles?

Not always, and we will tell you so on the call. If nobody was hurt and the insurer is paying the repair, there is no fee worth paying. You probably do if you had any medical treatment, if fault is disputed, or if the other driver's insurer has made you an offer, because each of those is the point where the value of a claim is decided. The call is free, it takes a few minutes, and it does not commit you to anything.

What happens when you call us?

1. 1
   A person answers, 24 hours a day

   Tell us where in Los Angeles it happened, when, what hurts, and what the insurance company has said so far.

2. 2
   An attorney tells you where you stand

   Whether you have a case, what it may be worth, which district and which deadline apply, and what happens next. No fee unless we recover, and case costs are disclosed in writing before we begin.

3. 3
   You are not committing to anything

   Calling does not create an attorney-client relationship. That happens only when you sign a written fee agreement, after you have read it.

Your calls and messages are answered by the people working your file, and an attorney directs every decision. Our headquarters are in Tarzana, about 20.8 miles from the city center, and you do not have to come to it. If you are in the hospital or cannot drive, we come to you.

What happens after we take your case?

1. 1
   Treatment, and the evidence that expires

   We get you to the right doctors, on a lien if you have no coverage, and send preservation letters for video and vehicle data that week.

2. 2
   The report, every insurer and the district

   We pull the LAPD division report or the CHP Area report, open a claim with every policy that may pay, and fix the district from the cross streets.

3. 3
   The demand, then filing

   A demand is the written package of records, bills, wage loss and liability proof that starts the negotiation. If the number comes back wrong, we file in the district where it happened, inside the deadline.

Which page covers my kind of case?

Los Angeles is the parent of every case type page we publish. On the road: car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, pedestrian accidents, bicycle accidents, rideshare accidents and drunk driving accidents. On someone's property: slip and fall accidents, premises liability, dog bites and construction accidents. The injury itself: brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, catastrophic injuries and wrongful death. Where the street, the crossing or the signal is part of the claim, the six month public entity clock applies, as our injured on government property page explains.

Talk to a Los Angeles injury lawyer

The firm's attorney profile is on the attorney page. Around the city we also serve Beverly Hills, Woodland Hills, Glendale, Pasadena, Long Beach, Torrance, Santa Clarita and Calabasas; the rest are on the locations page. You have two years to sue, six months if the city is involved, and no fee unless we recover.