St. Louis Personal Injury Lawyers

You can recover compensation for your injuries and lost income after a St. Louis accident, and the team at Hipskind & McAninch, LLC brings a rare edge: some of us once defended insurance companies, so we know exactly how the other side builds a file to pay you as little as possible. That view from the inside is the single biggest advantage we bring to your case.

Here is what it means for you in plain terms. Insurers train adjusters to find reasons to doubt your injuries, delay your payments, and talk you into a quick, low number. We saw those playbooks up close, and now we use that knowledge to get our clients full and fair results.

That experience shapes every choice we make on your file. Call or text us at 618-641-9189 for a free case review, and let’s talk about what happened to you.

Our clients have our cell phone numbers. Injury questions do not keep business hours, so we make ourselves reachable when something worries you. That level of access is uncommon among larger firms, and it is one of the things people appreciate most about working with us.

Why Our Fee Is Lower Than Most St. Louis Firms

Our baseline contingency fee starts at 33%, while many personal injury firms in this market charge 38% to 40%. A contingency fee means we only get paid if we win, taking an agreed slice of the recovery instead of billing you by the hour. In a serious case, that fee gap can put thousands of extra dollars back in your pocket.

We keep our baseline lower because we would rather earn your trust than pad an invoice. The exact percentage can shift depending on the facts, such as whether a case settles early or goes all the way through trial, and we spell that out in writing before you sign anything. No fine print, no surprises, and no fee at all unless we recover money for you.

Being upfront about money is part of how we treat people. When you call, you reach a real person, and often you reach one of our St. Louis personal injury lawyers directly on their cell phone. Reach out today to see how much of your recovery stays with you.

Who Are the St. Louis Personal Injury Lawyers Behind Our Firm?

John Hipskind, Personal Injury Attorney

Our clients work directly with seasoned trial lawyers, not a rotating cast of case managers. John Hipskind has practiced injury law for more than a decade, built his courtroom instincts as a public defender trying misdemeanor, felony, and homicide cases, and now holds a spot on The National Trial Lawyers Top 100 list.

Brady McAninch has practiced for over a decade and graduated magna cum laude from Southern Illinois University School of Law, where he clerked for the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. He has earned Super Lawyers Rising Stars recognition in both Illinois and Missouri, and he has won results like a unanimous jury verdict against a national restaurant chain over a hazardous floor mat.

Our bench recently grew even stronger. Stephen Buser joined us as Of Counsel, admitted before the United States Supreme Court.

He brings more than four decades of practice and over 50 jury trials in Illinois and Missouri. He also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Illinois Bar Journal and chaired the Illinois State Bar Association Tort Law Section Council.

Together, the three have recovered well over $50 million for injured people across the region. When you hire us, that combined depth stands behind your case from the first call to the last.

What Types of Cases Do We Handle in St. Louis?

We handle the full span of injury claims, from car wrecks on Interstate 64 to falls inside Central West End shops and restaurants. Most of our work involves someone getting hurt because another person or business failed to act with reasonable care, which the law calls negligence.

The situations we see most often include:

• Car, truck, and motorcycle crashes across the St. Louis metro
• Pedestrian and bicycle collisions near busy corridors like Kingshighway
• Slip, trip, and fall injuries on unsafe property
• Dog bites and animal attacks
• Defective products
• Nursing home neglect and abuse
• Wrongful death claims after a fatal accident

No matter which of these fits your situation, the core question is the same: did someone else’s negligence cause your harm? If the answer is yes, you likely have a claim worth exploring, and the type of accident mostly changes how we prove it, not whether you can recover. We sort that out with you at no cost.

Missouri gives injured people a relatively long window to act, but that window does close. Under Missouri Revised Statutes § 516.120(4), you generally have five years from the date of a negligence injury to file suit. However, waiting never helps a case and often hurts it as records and witnesses scatter.

When a crash or fall turns fatal, the claim shifts into Missouri’s separate wrongful death track, which sets its own rules about who can sue and how long they have. We take those cases on for grieving families across the metro. The loss can never be undone, but holding the responsible party accountable can ease the financial weight that follows and help a family steady itself.

What Makes a Fatal Accident Claim Different

A wrongful death claim moves on its own track, separate from an ordinary injury case, and the people involved matter as much as the facts of the crash. Missouri law limits who can bring the claim, starting with a spouse, children, or parents before the right passes to siblings or a court-appointed representative.

Only one wrongful death claim can move forward per family, so when multiple relatives could qualify, sorting out who has the right to file, and making sure every eligible family member’s losses are counted, has to happen early and correctly.

The value of a wrongful death claim reaches beyond funeral costs. Missouri Revised Statutes § 537.090 allows recovery for lost financial support, lost inheritance, and the guidance, care, and companionship the family will never get back. We build these claims around the full weight of what a family lost, not just the bills a death leaves behind.

Call 618-641-9189, and let us walk you through what a wrongful death claim can include in your family’s situation.

How Much Is Your St. Louis Injury Case Worth?

Brady McAninch, Personal Injury Attorney

The honest answer is that no two cases carry the same value, because the number depends on your medical bills, lost income, and other financial losses. It also depends on your pain and suffering, or how the injury reshapes your daily life.

What we can tell you is how we push that number as high as the facts allow, and our track record shows the difference careful work makes. Consider a few of our results:

We turned an apparent $100,000 policy into a $2.1 million recovery for a client hurt in a head-on crash, after we dug up proof that the at-fault driver was making a delivery and carried an extra $2 million in coverage.

In another case, we secured $900,000 for a woman whose chair collapsed at a restaurant, because we moved fast to preserve the video before it vanished.

Even low-speed crashes can carry real value when the injuries are real. We recovered $1 million for a client rear-ended in a collision with barely a dent, proving the crash still caused life-changing harm.

Past results like these reflect specific facts and do not promise any particular outcome in your case.

Can You Still Recover if You Were Partly at Fault?

Yes, and Missouri is unusually friendly to injured people on this point. Our state follows pure comparative fault, which means you can recover even if you were mostly to blame, with your award reduced by your share of the fault. A person found 40% responsible for a $100,000 loss would still collect $60,000.

Insurance companies know this rule, so they work hard to pin as much blame on you as they can. Shifting fault onto the injured person is one of the oldest tactics in the book, and it directly shrinks what an adjuster has to pay. Our background on the defense side means we anticipate those arguments and gather the evidence to answer them early.

Say an adjuster claims you were speeding when a driver ran a red light and hit you. We answer that with crash data, witness accounts, and sometimes a reconstruction, so the blame lands where it belongs instead of quietly shaving thousands of dollars off your recovery.

The primary reason this matters is leverage. When the other side sees that we have documented the facts and are ready to try the case, their incentive to make a fair offer climbs. Reach out and let us start protecting your side of the story.

How We Handle Your Case From Start to Finish

Stephen Buser, Of Counsel

Step one is a free conversation where we listen to what happened and explain your options in language that makes real sense. From there, we investigate liability, gather your medical records, and calculate the full scope of your losses, including future care and lost earning power.

Next, we handle every piece of contact with the insurance company so you can rest and heal. Most claims resolve through negotiation, and we press for a settlement that reflects the true cost of your injuries. When an insurer refuses to be reasonable, we are fully prepared to file suit in the appropriate Missouri court and try the case.

Throughout all of it, you can reach the lawyer handling your claim directly, which is rare in this market and something our clients tell us they value most. You are never left guessing about the status of your case. We think that kind of access is exactly what “big firm results, small firm care, every case, every time” is supposed to mean.

FAQs: Questions Our St. Louis Personal Injury Lawyer Hears Often

The questions below tend to come up once someone is ready to move forward, so we answered them plainly to help you take the next step.

Talk to Our St. Louis Injury Lawyer Team

You do not have to face an insurance company alone, and you do not have to overpay for help. Our lawyers know the defense playbook because some of us wrote it; we charge a lower baseline fee than most firms in town, and we stay personally reachable from your first call to your final check.

Reach out to Hipskind & McAninch, LLC today by calling or texting 618-641-9189 for your free, no-pressure case review with our St. Louis personal injury lawyer. Let us put our insider knowledge to work for you, and let’s find out together what your case is really worth.

Important Local Updates: Police Station and Hospital information for St. Louis, Missouri

Hospitals in St. Louis, Missouri Area

Several notable hospitals serve the St. Louis, Missouri area, including Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital, and Mercy Hospital St. Louis. Barnes-Jewish, the largest in Missouri, is an affiliated teaching hospital of Washington University School of Medicine.

• Barnes-Jewish Hospital
• St. Louis Children’s Hospital
• SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital
• Mercy Hospital St. Louis

Police Services in the St. Louis, Missouri Area

The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (SLMPD) is responsible for law enforcement within the City of St. Louis and is organized into three main Patrol Stations: South, Central, and North. These stations oversee six distinct Police Districts, each covering different parts of the city. In contrast, the St. Louis County Police Department operates independently and provides policing for St. Louis County, dividing its jurisdiction into eight precincts.

• St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department (City)
• St. Louis County Police Department (County)