Personal Injury Attorney
in Livonia, Michigan
I handle Michigan auto no-fault claims, premises liability, slip and fall, and wrongful death cases for clients across Metro Detroit, from my Livonia office, with a second office in Farmington.
Admitted to the State Bar of Michigan in 1990.
Livonia office at 18306 Middlebelt Rd. Free initial consultation.
The Insurance Company Is
Already Working Your Claim
If you were hurt in a car accident in Michigan, a claim file was opened on you within days, probably before you were home. An adjuster has been assigned. Your statement may already be recorded. That process does not wait for you to feel well enough to think about it.
That is not a reason to panic and it is not a reason to rush. It is a reason to have someone whose job is that file while your job is getting better.
I spent the first part of my career on the other side of these claims, working for the people who build and value them. That is thirty-six years of knowing how the file you are in gets put together, what gets asked and why, and what an early number usually means.
When you call me, you get me. I read the file, I handle the claim, and I tell you where you actually stand at every stage, including the parts you were hoping not to hear.
Michigan Auto Accidents
and No-Fault Claims
Michigan handles auto injury claims differently from most states, and the part that confuses almost everyone is that there are usually two separate claims running at once.
The first is against your own insurance company, for the things the crash cost you directly. Medical care, time you could not work, help around the house you now have to pay someone else to do. This is the claim that pays the bills while everything else is still being sorted out, and it is the one that most often gets quietly underpaid, because most people do not know what they are entitled to ask for.
The second is against the driver who caused it, for the harm itself rather than the receipts. That claim has a higher bar to clear and it takes longer, and whether you have one is a real question with a real answer rather than a sales pitch.
Pending attorney review: filing deadlinesWhat I tell every client at the start: the first offer you get is not the number, it is the opening of a conversation, and it is usually made before anyone knows what your treatment is going to look like. You do not have to answer it that day. Let me read the file first.
Slip and Fall and
Premises Liability
A fall on someone else's property is not automatically a case, and anyone who tells you otherwise on the first phone call is selling something.
What usually decides it is whether the hazard should have been dealt with before you ever walked into it. Was it there long enough that somebody should have seen it. Had it been reported. Was there a warning, and was the warning actually anywhere near the problem. Those questions have answers, and the answers live in maintenance logs, incident reports, and security footage that a property owner is under no obligation to keep indefinitely.
Pending attorney review: notice requirementsIf it happened to you recently, the single most useful thing you can do is write down what you remember while you still remember it, and photograph the place it happened if you can. If it happened a while ago and you did none of that, call anyway. That is a question worth an answer, not a reason to assume you are out of options.
Wrongful Death and Other Injury Claims
Auto accidents and falls are the majority of this work, but they are not all of it.
I handle wrongful death claims, which are their own kind of case and their own kind of conversation. If you are reading this on behalf of someone you lost, I am not going to pitch you in a paragraph. Call the office when you are ready.
I also handle injury claims against governmental bodies, which follow rules of their own and are frequently the reason someone is told by another attorney that nothing can be done.
There is also work in this area I do not take, and I will tell you so in the first conversation rather than learn your case at your expense. I do not handle workers' compensation claims. If that is what you have, I would rather point you somewhere useful on the first call than keep you on the phone.
- Auto no-fault, first and third party
- Premises liability and slip and fall
- Wrongful death
- Governmental immunity claims
I also handle criminal defense, family law, civil litigation, business and transactional law, and insurance defense, among the other areas I practice in, all from my Livonia office.
What I Promise, and What I Will Not
I do not promise outcomes. Nobody honest can, and on a personal injury claim the people promising them the loudest are the ones who will hand your file to somebody you have never met.
What I do is improve your odds and tell you exactly where those odds stand, at every stage, including when the answer has gotten worse rather than better.
"What I guarantee is improvement of odds, not a guaranteed outcome. Hard work."
My job is to make you as smart about your own case as I am, so that when there is a decision to make, you are the one making it with a real understanding of what you are choosing between. In this practice the final decision is always yours.
Bring me the situation as it actually is, including the parts you would rather not say out loud. Then I will tell you plainly what happens next.
Who Actually Handles Your Injury Case
You will not find my face on a bus shelter or in a late-night television spot. I have never wanted the kind of practice that is built that way.
A practice built on advertising is built to move volume, and volume work has to be handed down to somebody. That is not a criticism of anyone, it is arithmetic. It just means the attorney whose name got you to call is frequently not the attorney who reads your file.
I built a smaller practice on purpose. What that means for you is practical rather than sentimental: your file does not get passed along, nobody has to be brought up to speed on your situation twice, and the person who knows the details of your case in month eighteen is the same person you told them to in week one.
Most of the people who call me were sent by someone they trust. Sometimes a former client. Often another attorney who has been across the table from me and knows what I bring to a case. If you were referred here, that referral carries weight, and I take it seriously.
Where I Handle Injury Cases in Metro Detroit
My office is in Livonia, Michigan, at 18306 Middlebelt Rd. I handle injury claims for clients in Livonia, Dearborn, Detroit, and the Downriver communities, and I appear regularly in the circuit and district courts of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Monroe, and Livingston counties.
I know these courthouses. I know which local practices vary from one county to the next, which is the sort of thing that costs people time and money when their attorney is learning it on their case. I have been working alongside the people in them for thirty-six years.
Detroit Metro Area
Wayne County
Washtenaw County
Monroe County
Macomb County
Oakland County
Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Detroit skyline (Detroit Metro Area) by TheWxResearcher (CC BY 4.0); Wayne County Building by Joshuay04, Washtenaw and Monroe County Courthouses by Charles W. Chapman, Macomb County Administration Building by WeaponizingArchitecture, and Oakland County Sheriff's Office by 42-BRT (all CC BY-SA 4.0).
Common Questions About Michigan Injury Claims
Robert Akouri handles Michigan auto no-fault claims, both first party and third party, premises liability and slip and fall claims, wrongful death claims, and injury claims involving governmental bodies. He does not handle workers' compensation claims. His main office is in Livonia, Michigan, and the firm also has an office in Farmington. He handles injury matters across Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Monroe, and Livingston counties.
You are not required to give a recorded statement or accept an early offer on the day it is made. An early offer is usually made before anyone knows what your treatment will actually look like. Akouri Law offers a free initial consultation, so the cost of asking first is nothing.
It depends on the injury, the treatment, and whether the other side is willing to be reasonable, and any attorney who gives you a number on the first call is guessing. Robert Akouri's position is that a client should know where their case actually stands at every stage rather than be given a date that will not hold.
Ready to Talk? Call Akouri Law Now
Akouri Law offers a free initial consultation.
Call the Livonia office, tell us what happened, and you will get a plain answer about whether this is something I can help with and what the next step looks like. If it is not something I handle, you will hear that too, on the first call.