A deadline, set by statute, after which a legal claim can no longer be brought at all.
A statute of limitations is a filing deadline. Once it passes, a claim that would otherwise have succeeded can usually be dismissed without the facts ever being examined - which makes it one of the few legal rules that can end a case entirely on its own.
Three things make these deadlines harder to apply than they look. First, the length depends on the kind of claim, not on the incident: a single event can produce two claims with two different deadlines. Second, the clock does not always start on the day something happened - many claims start the clock when the harm was discovered, or reasonably should have been. Third, the clock can be paused or extended in defined circumstances, and separate, often much shorter, notice deadlines can apply to claims against government bodies.
This page states no time periods. Periods are set state by state and claim by claim, and a number quoted for the wrong state or the wrong kind of claim is worse than no number at all. The only reliable way to establish a specific deadline is to have the applicable statute identified for the specific claim.
This is the single most time-sensitive reason to speak to a lawyer early, because it is the one problem that cannot be repaired afterwards. If a deadline may be close, the useful call is the one made before it is confirmed, not after.
These directory pages each list at least one currently published law firm. The list is generated when this page loads, so a page whose listings have lapsed drops out rather than becoming a dead link.