Burlington Personal Injury Lawyer

Serious injuries in Burlington rarely happen in isolation. A distracted driver on I-89, an icy walkway a landlord ignored, or a diagnosis missed at a busy hospital can leave you facing months of recovery, mounting bills, and an insurance company already working to pay you as little as possible.

Promoting Justice Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers represents injured Vermonters and their families. We know the roads, the courts, and the tactics local insurers use, and we bring more than four decades of trial-tested advocacy to every case we accept. Attorney Linda Fraas spent years as insurance defense counsel before joining our practice, and she now applies everything she learned on the other side entirely on your behalf.

Get a free consultation today and discover how our personal injury attorneys in Burlington can help you seek the compensation and justice you deserve.

Do You Have a Vermont Personal Injury Case?

You have the right to seek compensation when another person’s or company’s negligence caused your injury. Negligence is a legal term with a specific meaning: someone failed to act with reasonable care, and that failure directly caused your harm.

To win a personal injury claim in Vermont, we must prove four things:

• Duty: The at-fault party had a legal responsibility to act safely in your situation.
• Breach: They violated that responsibility through careless, reckless, or wrongful conduct.
• Causation: Their failure directly caused the injury you suffered.
• Damages: You experienced real, measurable losses, physical, financial, or both.

You likely have a valid claim if any of the following are true:

• A driver was cited or charged following the crash that injured you
• A property owner knew about a dangerous condition and failed to fix it
• A doctor or hospital provided care that fell below the accepted medical standard
• A product you used as intended failed and caused your injury

What Is Your Burlington Injury Claim Worth?

The value of your case reflects the full scope of your losses, not just the immediate cost of your care.

Our firm has obtained substantial recoveries for clients, including in combined workers’ compensation and auto accident matters and in cases involving traumatic brain injuries caused by a landlord’s unmaintained stairway. Those results are possible when every component of a client’s harm is carefully documented and aggressively pursued.

Vermont law allows you to recover compensation for:

• Medical Expenses: Emergency care, surgery, hospitalization, rehabilitation, and all future treatment your injury requires
• Lost Wages and Earning Capacity: Income you have already missed and wages you may no longer be able to earn going forward
• Pain and Suffering: Physical pain, emotional distress, anxiety, and the disruption your injury has caused to daily life
• Property Damage: The cost to repair or replace your vehicle or any other damaged property
• Loss of Consortium: The toll your injury has taken on your relationship with your spouse or partner
• Wrongful Death Damages: Funeral expenses, lost financial support, and compensation for a family’s loss of their loved one’s companionship and guidance

Call (802) 454-3654 for a free valuation of your claim.

How Our Burlington Personal Injury Attorneys Help

From the day you hire us, we take full control of your legal matter. We communicate with insurance adjusters, secure time-sensitive evidence, and retain the medical and financial experts needed to prove every aspect of your losses.

• Our firm advances all costs of litigation, expert witness fees, filing costs, and investigation expenses, with no bill sent to you until we recover.
• We prepare every case as though it will be decided by a Vermont jury. That preparation sends insurers a clear message: an offer that does not reflect the true value of your claim will not be accepted.

Burlington Injury Cases We Handle

Our Burlington personal injury attorneys handle the full spectrum of plaintiff-side injury claims. We serve victims throughout Burlington and across Chittenden County in all of the following areas.

Car Accidents

Hazardous conditions on I-89, US-7, and Burlington’s snow-packed roads contribute to serious auto accidents every year. We hold at-fault drivers and their insurance carriers fully accountable for every loss you have suffered.

Truck and Commercial Vehicle Accidents

Commercial truck crashes are governed by federal safety regulations and typically involve larger insurance policies. We investigate the driver’s history, the company’s maintenance records, and every party that shares responsibility for your injuries.

Motorcycle Accidents

Motorcycle accidents often result in catastrophic injuries. Drivers frequently fail to notice riders, and insurance adjusters often exploit that to shift blame. We counter that bias directly and pursue the full compensation Vermont law allows.

Snowmobile and Boating Accidents

From Lake Champlain to Vermont’s extensive snowmobile trail network, recreational accidents happen every season. When another operator’s negligence caused your injury, you have the right to hold them accountable.

Slip and Fall and Premises Liability

Vermont property owners are legally required to maintain safe conditions year-round, especially during icy winter months. When they fail that duty, through broken railings, uncleared ice, or neglected walkways, they are liable for the harm that follows.

Medical Malpractice

When a physician, nurse, or facility such as UVM Medical Center delivers care that falls below the accepted professional standard, the consequences can be permanent. We build thorough medical malpractice cases that demand real accountability.

Workers’ Compensation

We help injured Burlington workers recover every benefit Vermont’s workers’ compensation system provides. We also look for third-party negligence that can supplement your recovery when another party’s conduct contributed to your workplace injury.

Product Liability, Animal Attacks, and Wrongful Death

Defective products, dog bites, and deaths caused by negligence all demand serious legal action. For families who have lost a loved one, we pursue wrongful death claims with the same determination and genuine care we bring to every matter we accept.

Across the range of Burlington injury claims we handle, from slip and falls on icy sidewalks near the University of Vermont to medical negligence cases involving UVM Medical Center, the pattern that repeats most often is a defendant’s insurer disputing causation rather than disputing that an accident happened at all.

What we see is that Vermont adjusters and defense counsel increasingly point to a claimant’s pre-existing conditions to argue an injury would have occurred anyway, regardless of the negligence involved. That is exactly why our intake process for every new Chittenden County client starts with pulling prior medical records before the opposing side can use them out of context.

What Is the Vermont Statute of Limitations for Personal Injury?

Vermont gives most personal injury victims three years from the date of their injury to file a lawsuit under 12 V.S.A. § 512. Wrongful death claims carry a two-year deadline, and actions against government entities must be filed within a much shorter window.

Physical evidence fades and memories become less reliable with time, the sooner you contact our office, the stronger your case will be.

How Fault Affects Your Vermont Injury Claim

Vermont uses a modified comparative negligence rule, which means you can still recover damages as long as you are no more than 50% at fault for the accident. Your award is reduced proportionally by your share of the blame, and if you are found more than 50% responsible, you are barred from any recovery.

Insurance adjusters routinely overstate your degree of fault to lower what their company owes. We challenge those calculations with documented facts and disciplined advocacy.

One pattern we consistently see in personal injury claims out of Chittenden County is an adjuster assigning a Burlington claimant 20 or 30 percent fault based on nothing more than a recorded statement taken within days of the incident, long before a full accident reconstruction or witness canvass has been done.

In Vermont injury claims, early, informal assessments of fault rarely hold up once independent evidence comes to light. Yet insurers often use those initial percentages as an anchor throughout the negotiation process. In our experience, pushing back on a fault allocation early, before it hardens into the file, changes the outcome far more often than waiting until a demand letter goes out.

What to Expect After You Contact Us

From your first call through the final resolution of your case, we manage every step so you can focus on your health.

1. Free Case Review: We evaluate your claim at no cost and with no obligation, answering your questions in plain language from the start.
2. Investigation: We act immediately to secure police reports, witness statements, surveillance footage, and scene documentation before evidence disappears.
3. Building Your Damages Case: We gather your medical records, consult with expert witnesses, and document every financial and personal loss your injury has caused.
4. Negotiation: With a fully supported claim, we present a formal demand and negotiate firmly with the insurance company for full and fair compensation.
5. Trial, if Necessary: If the insurer refuses to offer what your case is genuinely worth, we file your lawsuit and take your case to a Vermont jury. We prepare for trial from day one, it is not a bluff, it is our standard practice.

Contact us online or call (802) 454-3654 to begin your free consultation.

“Dennis and his team are an outstanding group of professionals. I am extremely pleased with the service and representation they provided. I would and will highly recommend them to anyone who may need their own service. Hopefully I will not need their assistance in the future, but I would certainly call on them if the need arises.” – James L.

Why Choose Promoting Justice Personal Injury & Car Accident Lawyers?

We represent only injury victims, we have never taken a case on behalf of an insurance company, and we never will. Our founding attorney Dennis O. Shillen, who holds an AV Preeminent rating and Super Lawyers recognition across more than 40 years of practice, built this firm on a single conviction: pursue every case as a crusader would pursue a noble cause.

Our team includes D. James Mackall, a published legal author and member of the Vermont Association for Justice Board of Governors, Nicholas J. Seldon, admitted in Vermont and New Hampshire, and Jack T. Spicer, admitted in Vermont, New York, and the U.S. District Court. Our legal assistants specialize in supporting personal injury clients, so the team handling your case understands the challenges you face.

“Attorney Mackall and his paralegal Brianna handled every aspect of my son’s personal injury case from start to finish. The results were more than we ever expected.” – Paul T.

Burlington Personal Injury FAQ

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Burlington Personal Injury Lawyer?

We work on a contingency fee basis, meaning you pay no fees upfront and owe us nothing unless we recover compensation for you. Our fee is a percentage of your final settlement or verdict.

How Long Does a Burlington Personal Injury Case Take to Resolve?

Straightforward claims can settle within a few months, while cases involving serious injuries or disputed liability often take a year or more. We keep you informed at every stage so you always know where your case stands.

What If the At-Fault Driver Was Uninsured or Underinsured?

Your own auto insurance policy may include Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM/UIM) coverage that applies when the at-fault driver cannot fully compensate you. We investigate every available source of recovery in your specific situation.

What If I Already Gave the Insurance Company a Recorded Statement?

Stop providing any additional information and do not sign anything or accept any offer before speaking with us. It is rarely too late to protect your claim once we are involved.

Do You Represent Out-of-State Visitors Injured in Burlington?

Yes. We regularly represent travelers, college students, and visitors from outside Vermont who suffered injuries in Burlington or anywhere in the state because of another party’s negligence.