My son was in an accident and the other person hired a lawyer should we retain one.

Yes and you should report the matter to your insurer. The insurer may appoint an attorney to your son under the terms of the insurance policy. Cooperate with the insurer and have your son follow the advise of counsel.

As I am not licensed in your state, I cannot provide you with specific information as to Georgia state law. However, it is a little unclear if you are asking if you should retain a lawyer for the ticket your son was issued or retain a lawyer to defend the claim against your son by the adverse driver.

As to the potential civil claim against your son by the adverse driver, you should report this incident to your automobile liability insurance company and they will handle the claim for you and hire an attorney to defend your son if it comes to that. You will not need to retain the attorney yourself.

As there has apparently been some falsification of the information provided to the police officer, I would suggest that your son retain a defense attorney to defend him on this ticket. If this phantom witness shows up to testify at the hearing on the ticket, a trained attorney through competent cross-examination of this witness hopefully will be able to discover the truth and the fact that this is not a witness at all.

Yes, you should hire a lawyer to fight the traffic ticket and to cross examine the alleged witness on the stand. Advise your insurance company immediately and tell them about the fabricated witness and they may be interested enough to activate their fraud unit to provide a free attorney for the traffic hearing to nail the cheating party if there is an injury claim made.

If you don't get an attorney then you can just plea nolo contendere to the ticket and pay the fine and move on with life. Pleading guilty however would be a cop out in light of these facts.

As far as any civil suit or claim for damages, your insurance company will provide you and your son with a free defense if suit is filed.

http://www.georgiaclaims.com

As mentioned in the previous answers to your question, your insurance company will provide you with a defense against any civil claim made by the other driver. I would stress that you should cooperate completely with your insurance company in their investigation and defense of the claim. You do not need to hire an attorney of your own with regards to the civil claim unless the potential exists for the damages claim made by the other party exceeds your insurance limits. It does not sound like that is the case here, but you should get assurances from your insurance company regarding this issue.

As to the issue of the traffic ticket, Georgia law provides that a conviction for a traffic violation is not admissible as evidence in any civil trial as long as there is not a guilty plea. This means that as long as your son goes to traffic court and pleads "not guilty", the other driver's lawyer can't tell a judge or jury about the existence of the ticket if the other party were to file a law suit against you. Therefore, as the outcome of the traffic court hearing is unimportant to the outcome of any civil trial for damages, it is not absolutely necessary to incur the expense of hiring an attorney for traffic court. You should consider the cost of representation against possibility of a point being added to your son's driving record to determine whether or not hiring a traffic court attorney would be worth it for you.

Feel free to contact me with any further questions.

Steven I. Goldman
GOLDMAN & ASSOCIATES
The Equitable Bldg. - Suite 2020
100 Peachtree Street, N.W.
Atlanta, GA 30303
(404) 577-9555
(404) 577-9556 (fax)
Steve@GoldmanLawAtlanta.com
www.GoldmanLawAtlanta.com