Finding the right personal injury lawyer is essential. Having the right legal team on your side can mean distinguishing between a successful claim and losing your case. You should consider some things as you decide who you want to represent you as you pursue compensation after an accident. Continue reading to learn more about what you should look for in a Cape Girardeau personal injury lawyer.
Why Is It Important to Have a Personal Injury Attorney After an Accident?
You should hire an attorney if you suffer an injury in an accident. The right attorney will act as your first line of defense against big insurance companies, aggressive defense lawyers, and defendants who want to avoid responsibility for the accident. A personal injury attorney can help you build your case in the following ways.
Negotiate With the Insurance Company
Most accident claims begin with negotiations with the insurance company. Insurance adjusters have one goal when speaking to an injury victim: to protect company profits. To achieve their goal, an insurance adjuster may contact you and attempt to badger you into settling for an amount too low to cover your injuries. Your accident attorney will protect you from any nefarious strategies the insurance company may concoct.
Represent You at Trial
If negotiations with the insurance company do not resolve the claim, your case may continue to trial. Although you can represent yourself in court, accident victims that represent themselves have worse outcomes than accident victims that hire an attorney to assist them.
Take Care of All The Legal Stuff
More goes into a lawsuit than settlement negotiations and trial. An experienced accident attorney knows the applicable procedural rules and how to comply with them to protect your case from dismissal. Your attorney can also help field calls from debt collectors and even help you gain access to medical care in some cases.
How to Choose the Right Personal Injury Lawyer
As you decide on what personal injury attorney to hire, you should do some work to determine who is the best fit for your situation. Consider the following when finding a personal injury lawyer.
Research Your Attorney Online
In today’s world, it is easier than ever to learn about service quality before investing time with the service provider. This is your life, and it is important to know what you are getting into with a personal injury attorney. Start by searching for personal injury attorneys in your area. Please look at their websites to get an idea about what area of law is the focus of their practice.
Some firms even include client testimonials on their websites. It can help to read about past clients’ experiences that had cases like yours. Google reviews may be a good source of information for clients who were not satisfied with their experience but be aware that you may run into clients with unreasonable expectations for the outcome of their case and the attorney.
Ask Family and Friends for Referrals
If you have a family member or friend that hired a personal injury lawyer in the past, talk to them about their experience. They can give you valuable insight into the overall process and what to expect as a client. If they enjoyed their experience with the attorney representing them, your search for the best personal injury lawyer in your area may be over.
Take Advantage of Your Initial Consultation
Your first meeting with the attorney is your chance to gauge whether you and their office will work well together. Take advantage and get to know your attorney. To prepare for your initial consultation, take some time to collect your thoughts before you meet with the attorney. You can jot down some notes or questions you want to ask the attorney and bring them to the consultation. You will get much more out of the first meeting with the attorney if you come to their office prepared.
Will the Attorney Handle Your Case Personally?
Especially in big law firms, the attorney that you meet during the initial consultation may not be the attorney that represents you. If that is a concern, you should ask the attorney that you meet with if that is how their firm works. You may find yourself in a situation where you really liked the attorney you met with, but you are not comfortable with the attorney that ultimately handles your case. You should get as much information as you can about how the actual representation that you receive will look so that you can make an informed decision.
What Types of Cases Does the Attorney Handle?
You want an attorney who is experienced in personal injury law and knows how to help you prove your injuries to recover your damages. It is ideal to hire an attorney who has experience in personal injury law.
There are many practice areas, and an attorney may spend their entire career learning the ins and outs of a single type of law. An attorney spending time learning about the area of law in which they practice provides their clients with a great advantage because the attorney can anticipate the outcomes and can avoid pitfalls. Consequently, the client gets the best possible outcome for their case.
How Often Does the Attorney Go to Trial?
Most personal injury claims begin with settlement negotiations with the insurance company. However, there are times when settlement negotiations are unfruitful, and your case must go to trial. You need an attorney who is not afraid to take a case to trial when the insurance company fails to offer a satisfactory settlement amount. Ask each attorney that you meet with how often they go to trial.
Going to trial is like exercising a muscle; if you don’t exercise the muscle often enough, it may atrophy. Remember that just because a personal injury attorney settles cases often does not mean they do not do good work. You should choose an attorney with sound judgment about when a settlement offer is good and when it is time to go to trial.
Ask About the Attorney’s Success Rate
You want an attorney that has a track record of successful outcomes. Civil lawsuits require a particular skill set. Civil lawsuits have a different burden of proof than criminal cases, so your lawyer must present the evidence to meet the burden of proof. An experienced personal injury attorney knows how to use strategy to increase your odds of success. Do not be afraid to ask the attorney about their record of successful outcomes for personal injury claims and lawsuits.
Inquire About the Attorney’s Reputation in the Legal Community
An attorney’s reputation matters. An attorney with a good reputation in the legal community can increase your odds of success as you pursue your accident claim. First, if a lawyer has a good reputation among their peers, that usually means they are knowledgeable, ethical, and professional. Also, a good reputation in the legal community means that other attorneys may be more prone to settle with the attorney. A personal injury attorney with a good reputation can increase your overall odds of success with your accident claim.
Ask About the Firm’s Resources
You should feel confident that the law firm you choose has the financial resources it takes to pursue an accident claim or bring a lawsuit. Lawsuits can get expensive quickly. The fees begin at the very start of the case. There is a fee to file the complaint, you may need an expert medical witness to help prove your damages, or there may be a fee for depositions and mediations. Those fees stack up, and you need a law firm with the resources necessary to take your case to the finish line.
In addition to the firm’s financial resources, you may want to ask about its network of expert witnesses. You must describe your injuries to the judge or jury and prove that the accident caused your harm to win your accident case. An expert witness can help you do that. Your attorney will help connect you with expert witnesses.
Choose an Attorney Who You Get Along With
There is no timeline for how long a personal injury case will take to resolve. You can spend months or years working to settle your case or prepare for trial. Hiring an attorney with whom you do not get along with will be a miserable experience. You should ensure that the attorney and their staff are people you can form a cordial, professional relationship with because you may spend a lot of time in their office.
Choose an Attorney Who Can Answer Your Questions
If a candidate attorney has difficulty or hesitation when answering questions you may have, it might be best to look elsewhere. This is likely the first lawsuit or insurance claim you have pursued, and you certainly have many questions about the process. Lawsuits can get complicated, and you should have a legal team that knows the law and can explain it to you so you are not in the dark about the status of your case.
In addition to having excellent communication about how the law applies to your case, you should hire a legal team that promptly answers correspondence from third parties. You do not want a law firm with a reputation for letting phone calls from the insurance company go unreturned or not replying to opposing counsel’s emails. Your lawyer and their office represent you, so you want to make sure that you hire a firm that will represent you well in and out of court
Understand How Much the Attorney Charges for Their Services
One of the most important questions you should ask before hiring a personal injury attorney is the fees they charge for their legal work. Personal injury attorneys typically charge a percentage of the settlement amount recovered as their fee for legal work.
The amount you pay depends on the attorney that you hire. Make sure that you are clear about how much the attorney charges for their work before you agree to have them represent you.
Watch Out for Over-Advertisement
Have you ever cringed at a lawyer’s advertisement? Sometimes law firms can overdo it with ads online, on billboards, or on television. You may know an attorney’s name from a bus ad, but that doesn’t mean they are the right person to represent you.
There is nothing wrong with a tasteful advertisement, but don’t rely solely on name recognition when looking for a personal injury attorney. You want someone concerned about providing quality representation and wants to help you put your life back together after an injury.
Don’t Be Afraid to Meet With Multiple Attorneys
Do not be afraid to meet and interview multiple attorneys before deciding who to hire. Just because you had an initial consultation with an attorney does not mean you must hire them. Take some time to evaluate which law firm will be a good fit for you. There are deadlines for filing a lawsuit, so keep that in mind, but take your time to decide which attorney to hire. This is your life, and it is an important decision.
Follow Your Instincts
Ultimately, your gut will tell you whether an attorney and their staff are a good match for you and will help you get the compensation you deserve after an accident. Do not feel pressured to hire an attorney’s office, and if you feel they are not the best fit for your goals after meeting them, don’t hire that office. You have your instincts for a reason, and after gaining information about the attorney, it just doesn’t feel right, trust your gut.
Contact a Personal Injury Attorney
Personal Injury Attorney, Phillip J. Barkett
If you suffered an injury in an accident, you have a lot of choices to make. One of the most important choices that you will make is what attorney to hire to represent you. Take time to ensure that you put your best foot forward after an accident and choose a Cape Girardeau personal injury lawyer.