Believe it or not we do not charge anything for this! Yes! Please call us. We would much rather talk to you now and give you some advice than have disaster strike and you have to call us later. Most of the time we can have you speaking with an attorney who has been certified by the State of North Carolina as a specialist in workers’ compensation within just a few minutes. Less than 2% of all attorneys have that certification by the way… So call us! One of our staff will take a few notes and get a Board Certified Specialist on the phone. We are so dedicated to answering questions that even the two founders of the firm, Todd Oxner and Chip Permar, spend a good portion of their day giving advice to injured people just like you.

We work on a contingency fee basis. You may have heard this term before or heard a lawyer on television say, “we don’t get paid if you don’t get paid.” A contingency fee means something has to happen in order for us to get a fee. That something, the contingency, is you getting paid. So if your claim is denied and you aren’t getting anything then we don’t get paid until and unless you get paid. If you don’t get paid then you don’t owe us a fee. It’s as simple as that… there’s no risk to you.

If your claim is accepted and you’re getting paid then our fee is based on the permanent award at maximum medical improvement or a settlement. There are other less common contingencies like you receiving Social Security Disability with an offset or receiving temporary partial disability.

The Industrial Commission has to approve all of our fees. They normally approve a fee of 25% — and although some firms do, we never ask for more than 25% of your overall settlement. And other than on disputed or litigated benefits we don’t take fees on temporary benefits.

The North Carolina State Bar is the government agency which licenses and monitors attorneys. This agency distinguishes a very, very small number of attorneys as Board Certified Specialists. In order to be Board Certified, an attorney has to practice primarily in workers’ compensation for at least five years, submit an extensive application detailing various cases which they have handled, go through many hours of continuing education, have their work evaluated by a committee of other attorneys, and then if they are “lucky” enough to get that far they take a day-long written examination which many seasoned attorneys fail.

Todd Oxner was in the very first group of attorneys ever named as Board Certified Specialists in Workers’ Compensation. Currently Oxner + Permar has eight Board Certified Specialists in Workers’ Compensation, more than any other plaintiff’s firm in the entire state.

The easiest way is to call us and talk it over!

We don’t charge anything to talk and 99% of the time you can talk with either Chip Permar or Todd Oxner within just a few minutes of calling. Unlike a lot of other firms, we think injured workers should talk to attorneys not just to “intake specialists” or “investigators.” We also think you probably want to speak with some of the most experienced and high profiles lawyers in the firm. So the two founders of the firm set aside every day to talk to injured workers. We’ve asked around and as far as we can tell we are the only firm this size where just about any time you need you can talk to the guys’ whose names are on the door.

Our rule of thumb for needing a lawyer:

1.The claim is denied.
2.The adjuster is not paying the correct amount on a timely basis.
3.The adjuster is not authorizing medical treatment on a timely basis.
4.You will likely have a surgery or a permanent disability.
5.You have questions as to whether or not you can return to your old job for the long term.
6.The adjuster is trying to get you to settle your case but is not offering you enough money.

It isn’t limited to that list, of course, but we deal with those situations almost daily. And we have specific solutions and ideas that we can tailor to your case if you find yourself in that predicament. So give us a call.

That’s a fair question. The short answer is the “but for” answer… you wouldn’t get anything but for the work that your attorney did for you. The long answer is that we may be able to convince the Industrial Commission to sanction your employer or their insurance company for a frivolous denial and have our fees shifted over to the other side. We are pretty aggressive about pursuing these under a provision in the law that penalizes a party for “stubborn, unfounded, litigiousness.” But with the new laws implemented by Gov. McCrory, we’ve seen a decline in these being awarded. This may be a temporary phase. And we’re still filing those claims when we think the defendants are being ridiculous.