As far as when should you hire a lawyer, generally you should hire one immediately. And the reason is, the other person who is the potential defendant is going to notify their insurance carrier and theyāre going to go out to the scene of the accident, and theyāre going to investigate what happened to you.
Youāve got an insurance company working against you, they may even bring a lawyer with them, maybe even a team of lawyers, depending on what kind of case it is.
Youāve got a whole team working against you, and you need to get a lawyer on your side immediately to start investigating the facts and figuring out what happened and start gathering evidence working for you.