Our main office is on Utah Street in Merrillville, minutes from the Lake County Government Center in Crown Point, where most of our Lake County cases are filed. Our Merrillville office is at 8002 Utah Street, Merrillville, IN 46410, and you can reach it at (219) 472-8391. If you cannot come to us, we will come to you, including hospital and home visits for seriously injured clients.
U.S. 30 through Merrillville, the I-65 interchanges at 61st Avenue and U.S. 30, and Broadway are the corridors we see most. The retail strip along U.S. 30 and the Southlake Mall area produce a large share of our slip, trip, and parking-lot cases. Our office is on Utah Street, and most Merrillville clients meet us there within a day or two of calling.
Where Merrillville cases are filed: Lake Superior Court, Civil Division, at the Lake County Government Center in Crown Point.
Hospitals we work with for Merrillville clients: Methodist Hospitals Southlake (Merrillville), Franciscan Health Crown Point, Community Hospital (Munster). We request records and bills directly so you are not chasing them.
The left-turn crash is the most common: a driver waiting to turn across traffic misjudges the speed of an oncoming motorcycle, or never registers it at all, and turns into its path. Close behind are drivers pulling out from driveways and side streets, lane changes into a rider in the blind spot, rear-end collisions at stoplights, and car doors opened into a rider’s path. Indiana law gives a motorcycle the same right to a full lane as any other vehicle, and a driver who fails to yield is responsible for the crash. We obtain the police report, witness statements, and the other vehicle’s event-data recorder, and we retain reconstruction experts when speed or sight lines are disputed.
Adjusters and some jurors start from the assumption that motorcyclists are reckless. That bias shows up in a quick liability denial, a lowball offer, or an argument that the rider must have been speeding. We counter it with evidence: skid and gouge marks, crush damage, event-data downloads, the rider’s licensing and training history, and the testimony of independent witnesses. Indiana does not require adult riders to wear a helmet; the requirement applies to riders under eighteen and to certain permit holders. We treat the absence of a helmet the way the law should: it is not negligence in itself, and we resist every attempt to use it to reduce a rider’s recovery for injuries a helmet would not have prevented. Lane splitting, riding between lanes of slow or stopped traffic, is not permitted in Indiana, and we address that question directly when it is raised.
A rider thrown from a motorcycle at any speed can suffer a traumatic brain injury even with a helmet, deep road rash requiring skin grafts, fractures of the pelvis, legs, wrists, and collarbone, spinal cord injury, and amputation. These injuries mean long hospitalizations, surgery, rehabilitation, and in many cases a permanent change in the ability to work. We document every category of loss, including future care and lost earning capacity, with treating physicians and life-care planners. Some crashes are caused not by another driver but by the road itself: loose gravel left by a paving crew, an unmarked pavement edge drop, a pothole, or a steel plate. Those claims run against a contractor or a government entity, and a claim against a city, county, or the state requires a tort claim notice on a short deadline.
Most injury claims must be filed within two years of the date of injury (Ind. Code § 34-11-2-4). If a city, county, or state agency is involved, a tort claim notice may be required within 180 days. The sooner you call, the more evidence we can preserve.
A Chicago-area native who worked in telecommunications and held two jobs to support his family before law school, Jason founded the firm in 2010 on a no-nonsense, plain-spoken approach to solving clients’ problems.
Admitted to the Indiana bar at 24, the youngest licensed attorney in the state at the time, Miguel pairs that early start with more than fifteen years helping Northwest Indiana families through injury claims and bankruptcy.
Crown Point · Hobart · Schererville · Hammond · Gary · Highland · Munster · Portage
Most Merrillville injury cases are filed in Lake Superior Court, Civil Division, at the Lake County Government Center in Crown Point. Our attorneys appear there regularly and know the local judges, the mediators, and the defense firms the insurers hire.
Yes. Indiana does not require adult riders to wear a helmet, and not wearing one is not negligence in itself. The insurer may try to argue it, and we are prepared for that argument.
No. A driver’s duty is to look and to yield before turning or pulling out. Failing to see a motorcycle that was there to be seen is the negligence, not an excuse for it.
Five minutes on the phone and you will know where you stand. You will not owe us a fee unless we recover money for you, and the bills get handled before the check does.