Selecting the right personal injury attorney is crucial for your case’s success. Discover key attributes like trust, experience, and responsiveness to ensure you make an informed decision. But how do you evaluate things like personal injury attorney experience? When looking for how to choose a personal injury lawyer, you want one who is trustworthy, experienced, and responsive. Those three attributes will substantially increase the likelihood of successful representation for your injuries.
Trust is necessary for you to be more likely to divulge facts of your case. Some personal injury cases contain sensitive information. While personal injury lawyers are sworn to protect confidential and privileged information, sometimes, that is not enough for a client to trust his attorney. You should also seek out an experienced lawyer. While an inexperienced attorney may still be capable of providing adequate legal representation, there is a slim likelihood that she will know as much as a 30-year veteran. Lastly is responsiveness. You may have an attorney who is friendly and experienced. Still, if it is overly burdensome to get in touch with him to ask a question about your case, the quality of the representation is diminished.
So, you’re wondering how to choose a personal injury lawyer who fits these qualities? Every personal injury attorney provides a consultation to determine whether your case is one they want to take. During this case evaluation, ask the attorney the following seven questions.
As discussed above, experience is essential when asking how to choose a personal injury lawyer. When asking this question, you want to evaluate the lawyer or law firm’s track record and expertise. For example, if the attorney typically handles criminal defense cases but is searching for a personal injury lawyer, you may decide to steer clear. This is possible even if the attorney has been practicing law for 40 years. Experience in the wrong field of law is akin to not practicing law at all.
You can even take this one step further. For example, our firm handles a significant number of nightclub injury cases. You may wish to look elsewhere if you speak with an attorney who handles car accident cases exclusively. Of course, many personal injury attorneys and law firms have experience in both realms; our attorneys fall into that category. Our lawyers are experienced in handling truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, pedestrian accidents, slip and falls, wrongful deaths, and more.
This is a tricky question to ask when wondering how to choose a personal injury lawyer. The success rate of a personal injury lawyer is complicated, as it is in any other field of law. Much of a success rate depends on the quality of the case as much as the quality of the attorney. An experienced attorney is highly unlikely not to have lost a case. Sometimes, a jury is unpredictable. While a prudent attorney will attempt to settle a case to avoid the unpredictability of a jury, this is not always possible. So, why ask this question? The answer to this question should indicate the attorney’s trustworthiness. A personal injury attorney cannot guarantee future results; it is unethical. Further, it is nearly impossible for an experienced attorney to have a flawless track record.
The honesty embedded in the answer to this question will affect trustworthiness and whether you should hire that attorney. On the other hand, it allows the lawyer to discuss similar past cases. In doing so, you can gauge competency and efficacy. You can better understand his past case outcomes. Perhaps the attorney took a losing case and turned it into a winner. Look to contextualize their success rate. If the lawyer has won thousands of cases, that may be impressive. But how many cases has he lost? Look to understand the approach taken in past cases.
This is among the most essential qualities to look for when checking how to choose a personal injury lawyer. This question allows the attorney to explain the importance of responsiveness. Responsive communication between a lawyer and their client is pivotal for the success of any personal injury case. Some younger clients may prefer to communicate with their attorneys via text. Meanwhile, an older lawyer may not be comfortable texting clients. While not essential, ensuring you match your preferred communication style evenly can improve the quality of the legal representation you receive. This leads to clarity and understanding of the status of your case. Without effective communication, you may be left unsure of the status of your case. You may try contacting your attorney, only to find he is unavailable to answer your questions. Hiring an attorney who communicates promptly and effectively with clients is imperative for excellent legal representation.
You may choose to take this one step further. Inquire about how often you can expect updates about your case. Determine whether you need to be the one to reach out for an update or if your personal injury lawyer will do it independently. While reaching out yourself is likely sufficient for a sizeable recovery, it is not optimal, and it may lead to more missed deadlines and confusion for you as the client. Effective communication strategies in legal representation allow for adaptability to the client’s needs. A skilled personal injury lawyer considers the client’s needs as one of the most important aspects of a case. This is true regarding compensation, and it is true regarding communication.
This is an essential question to ask when wondering how to choose a personal injury lawyer. You must clarify who your primary contact will be throughout your case. Believe it or not, a paralegal handles your case when you hire a personal injury lawyer at many firms. But, a paralegal is not legally permitted to practice law. Thus, an attorney “overseeing” your case will handle the ethical dilemma. However, most paralegals have not been to law school. While many are proficient in many aspects of the law, if you hire a personal injury lawyer, that is who you want to handle your case. Different law firms have different stances on this issue.
At Gelb & Gelb, P.C., you will only deal directly with your personal injury lawyer. Equally important is that you can reach your attorney seven days a week. This does not mean we will not handle your case as a unified team. Rather, you can count on our attorneys if you have a legal question or if your case requires legal expertise. When interviewing your personal injury lawyer to determine if he is a good fit for your case, you are not conducting a similar interview with each paralegal at the firm. While you may choose to assume that the lawyer is a representation of the whole firm, the reality is that rapport, comfort, and trust do not always translate directly.
Determine who will be the decision maker on your case. While the reality is that you are ultimately the decision maker for your case, strategy and potential settlements are designed by the attorney. Ensure that the person you are consulting with is the same person handling the other vital aspects of your case. This is part of the advantage of hiring a local personal injury lawyer.
This question should be obvious when deciding how to choose a personal injury lawyer. The cost of any professional providing a service should be confirmed prior to services being rendered. This question lets you anticipate your financial commitment and compare one lawyer’s services to another. In the field of personal injury law, most lawyers charge the same fee structure. The same is true at Gelb & Gelb, P.C. Our lawyers operate on a contingent fee basis. This means that our fee is contingent on our winning your case. We take one-third of the gross recovery if we win your case by settlement before filing suit. If we have to file suit, our fee increases to 40%. But if we do not win, our fee is zero. If a personal injury lawyer uses a different fee structure, they likely adhere to something similar.
Be sure to dig into the weeds of their fee structure. Beyond the contingent fee, is there a retainer? Will the cost be the same if you spend 100 hours on a case as if you spend three? Who covers the costs associated with a case, such as expert witnesses, filing costs, etc.? When deciding how to choose a personal injury lawyer, you must clarify these costs before moving forward.
This question does a few things when deciding how to choose a personal injury lawyer. First, you can check the number of references that a lawyer has. If he has two or three, he may be inexperienced. Meanwhile, he may have decades of experience if he has hundreds. But do not be fooled by a firm with several hundred reviews; none are attributed to the lawyer handling your case. You may encounter this issue when working with a larger personal injury firm. This is why Gelb & Gelb has decided to stay small. Each case is either handled or directly overseen by Managing Partner Roger Gelb. This way, when you read our 5-star reviews, you know exactly who each is attributed to.
Beyond that, when choosing a DC injury lawyer, you can look at awards and recognition that a lawyer may get. There are a lot of rating systems out there. Martindale-Hubbell is one, and you have certain periodicals and journals that rate and rank lawyers. Those are important to look at, too. This is available online, and I encourage potential clients to do as much research as possible.
This is a vital question when evaluating how to choose a personal injury lawyer. Some personal injury lawyers prefer to file almost every case they handle. Their theory is that an insurance company will never offer the actual value of the case prelitigation. Our experience is this is not the case. It makes a lot of sense for an insurance company to offer precisely what the case is worth prelitigation. If they know they are up against an impressive adversary, then they know you are likely to recover what the case is worth at trial. It is not in their interest to try many of their cases because of the increased costs. They do not want to have to pay for court costs, deposition costs, expert witness costs, and still have to pay you for your injuries. Thus, understanding a personal injury lawyer’s settlement versus litigation philosophy is helpful.
You should also inquire into an attorney’s litigation experience when deciding how to choose a personal injury lawyer. If an attorney has zero litigation experience, you will unlikely want him representing you in court. Everyone needs to start somewhere, but you do not want them testing the waters with you. You may wish to ask the attorney the following questions:
It’s vital that a potential client research a potential DC car accident lawyer that they may consider retaining in an injury claim or any other legal case. The best way to do that is word-of-mouth referral. If you talk to a friend, a colleague, or a family member who has been in an accident and had a lawyer handling the case and they were happy and had good results, that’s your best way to choose a DC injury lawyer.
Ready to choose a personal injury lawyer who meets all your needs? Contact us for a consultation and start your journey towards justice today.