Tips for choosing a quality personal injury attorney
When you are involved in a Personal Injury Accident choosing the best attorney to handle your claim is essential to obtaining the amount of compensation that you deserve for your losses.
Choosing the best Personal Injury Attorney to handle your case can be a challenging task. More often than not, there are many options for you to choose from. So how do you go about choosing the best one?
Tips for Choosing a Quality Personal Injury Lawyer
Tip #1 Hire an Attorney with Experience
Hiring a personal injury attorney who has the experience to know what to look for, where to look for it, and understands your case, can make all the difference during the negotiation and settlement process.
Before you hire an attorney, ask them about the experiences they have had handling similar cases in the past. Find out what their success rates are and whether or not they are prepared to take your case to trial if necessary.
If you hire an attorney with little to no experience, you run the risk of losing or not being offered the amount of compensation that you deserve.
Tip #2 Hire an Attorney who has Experience Taking Cases to Trial when Necessary
There are many attorneys who handle personal injury cases but have never actually seen the inside of a courtroom.
Insurance companies are extremely aggressive when it comes to winning a personal injury case, and if they know that your lawyer does not have trial experience, they will try to take advantage of your attorney in the hopes that your case will be settled outside of court at a much lower amount than what you are asking for.
If your attorney is not willing to take your case to trial, the insurance company will know and that could drastically hurt the amount of compensation that you are offered.
Tip #3 Hire an Attorney with a Good Reputation
When you hire a personal injury attorney with a positive reputation, who is known for handling and resolving cases quickly and fairly, you will have a much better chance at obtaining the compensation that you deserve.
An attorneys reputation can provide that added value to your case, not only from the plaintiff’s perspective, but also from the defendant’s and the court’s perspective on handling cases and doing thing the right way.
This puts the client in the best situation possible to recover the amount of compensation that they are owed.
Tip #4 Hire an Attorney who Specializes in Personal Injury
Personal Injury law is very intricate and involves specific rules and regulations that need to be followed.Attorneys who handle personal injury law on top of divorce law, bankruptcies, etc. may be a jack of all trades but a master at none.
The Attorneys main focus of practice can make a huge difference in the outcome of your case. An attorney who focuses solely on personal injury law will have unique skills when it comes to determining liability, negligence, and causation of the accident.
An attorney who only specializes in personal injury will also be better equipped when it comes to accurately valuing your case and the amount of compensation that you deserve.
Advantageous Reasons for Pursuing a Personal Injury Claim
Before contacting an attorney, keep in mind that a personal injury claim is based on the premise that you were personally harmed, not your property or belongings. Additionally, the incident must have been a result of someone else’s negligence and not your own. In cases of slip and fall, otherwise called premises liability cases, it isn’t enough that you injured yourself on someone else’s property. You will have to prove that another party was negligent and caused the injury.
When doing his dudillegence, your attorney will then evaluate the accident, your injuries and whether it occurred under suspect conditions. When assessing the legitimacy of a personal injury case, your attorney may consider a number of factors.
- Who is Liable – Determining who is liable is the keystone to any personal injury case, and will be at the top of your lawyer’s to-do list. Liability refers to the party at fault. For example, if there was an accident and a police report was drafted that states you contributed to the incident, or you were mostly at fault, then that would discourage most attorneys from taking on your case. However, there are situations where liability is shared and the case moves forward. This is called comparative negligence. This is when both parties contributed to the accident and both may be due compensation.
- Qualifying Conditions of a Personal Injury Case – Your personal injury attorney will begin evaluating the details of your case to see if it is provable in a court of law. Simply injuring yourself is not nearly enough to rise to the level of proving negligence on someone else’s behalf.
- The Severity of the Injury – While it is always preferred that victims walk away from an accident without sustaining severe injuries or being seriously harmed, there has to be just cause for filing a personal injury claim. If you experienced loss of wages and/or sustained injuries that resulted in unusually high medical bills because of another’s negligence, then this may added motivation for a personal injury attorney to pursue your case. One of the most severe types of personal injury claims fall under the ‘serious injury’ category. This would include burns, paralysis, spinal cord injury. But you needn’t be totally bed ridden or disabled to collect damages in a personal injury case. If you were harmed or wounded because of a defective product, in a bicycle accident, or even while walking down the street, these all fall under the umbrella of potential personal injury claims.
- The Economic Value of a Personal Injury Case – It may sound insensitive, but the monetary value of your case is of interest to your attorney, and should also be a priority to you. Whether you are seeking compensation for exorbitant medical bills, lost wages, mental anguish, or pain and suffering, your personal injury lawyer wants to ensure that he/she is compensated for his/her time as well. The reality is, compensation most likely won’t be awarded if the injury didn’t financially or emotionally impact your life in a negative way. Also, the out-of-pocket costs of pursuing a personal injury case can accumulate pretty quickly. Your attorney will be assessing if there is a fair return on investment. Personal injury lawyers typically accept cases on a contingency basis. Meaning, the attorney gets paid when you get paid, in the event the case is successful. It comes down to a simple business move. Your attorney wants the highest degree of certainty that the personal injury claim is worth it and is of value to everyone, including the client.
Qualities To Look For In A Personal Injury Lawyer
Unfortunately, bad things do happen to good people. Lives often change in an instant at the hands of someone else’s negligence. Whether you were injured by a distracted or drunk driver’s actions or experienced a spinal cord injury in a slip and fall on someone else’s property, these instances cause serious, devastating and sometimes lifelong injuries. The consequences can be grave, made worse by the lack of money to get the best medical care and legal attention possible.
Ability to Provide Fair Legal Representation
Realistically speaking, it won’t be easy to defend yourself in a situation you’re not familiar with. Unless you’re a legal professional, you need a personal injury lawyer’s assistance to take care of your case for you. Using their negotiation and research skills, they’ll represent you in all legal proceedings. They’re also well-equipped in dealing with the negotiations and developing a strong case for you.
Hence, if you’re having negotiations with the insurance company, be sure to work with people like Yegendorf personal injury lawyers who can provide fair legal representation from start to finish. That way, you can rest, knowing that your legal counsel has your best interests in mind.
Extensive Experience in Handling Personal Injury Claims
When looking for a personal injury lawyer, you should consider your options’ extensive experience in handling personal injury cases. Those who have valuable years of experience are always ready to take the case as far as it’ll go. Given their track record for settlements and judgments won in the courtroom, they’re best positioned for success.
That said, it’s best to consider a legal professional who has extensive legal experience in personal injury law. In doing so, you’ll have higher chances of winning your case and getting the right amount of compensation for your injuries.
Ability to Determine What Your Claim is Worth
More than your physical recovery, you want the party responsible for your injuries to be held accountable for the harm done against you. Unfortunately, you might not know how to calculate your claim’s worth, affecting the amount of compensation you’re entitled to receive. This is one of the reasons why you should hire a personal injury lawyer who can determine what your claim is worth.
Typically, a dedicated personal injury lawyer knows how to calculate the financial worth of your claim. They’re very much aware of the financial costs and the factors that can impact the value of your claim. Therefore, they consider everything before starting the negotiation process with the insurance company and the at-fault party.
So, if you don’t want to end up with an unfair settlement, always look for a lawyer who can determine your personal injury claim’s real value.
Trial Skills
If you’re searching for the best lawyers, you’re referring to professionals with exceptional trial skills. Typically, personal injury claims that don’t push through in the negotiation stage with the insurance company will be elevated to trial. As such, you’ll need a lawyer who knows exactly how the court processes work, as well as one who has excellent social skills and the ability to create a compelling story as your argument.
If your prospective lawyer has these trial skills from the beginning, it can be a sign that you’ve chosen the right one for your personal injury lawsuit claim.
Compassionate Care and Legal Advice
The best personal injury lawyers don’t view their profession as strictly a business. They look at it as a helping profession, whereby they are motivated by the opportunity to solve problems for those who have been injured. Good personal injury lawyers keep the best interests of their clients in mind at all times. This often means working long hours, doing research, filing documents, meeting with clients and their families, and generally going above and beyond to reach a successful settlement or verdict.
Respect of Peers
Look for personal injury lawyers in Lancaster that have earned the respect of their peers, identified as the best in their profession by local, regional and national groups, listings, articles, journals, and more. True respect can’t be bought. It’s demonstrated by consistently providing successful results, accumulating many years in the field serving the same location with the same dedicated services.
Availability
A personal injury lawyer who truly cares about you will make the time to be available to answer your questions. Attorneys worth their salt will go the extra mile to educate you on the legal process and explain what’s going on rather than putting you off to the side. This compassionate availability is what sets the great personal injury lawyers in Lancaster apart from the so-so ones.
How to Pick a Personal Injury Lawyer
It’s not something you do everyday, so no matter who you choose your Lerners team wants to make sure you have all the information you need to pick the best lawyer for you. We’re here to help, no matter what.
Where to Begin?
It’s hard to even know where to begin when searching for a personal injury lawyer. There are a lot of options out there, just like picking a doctor, but that doesn’t mean all those options are good ones.
Check Their Credentials and Do Your Research
Just like you wouldn’t hire a dermatologist to perform heart surgery, lawyers are specialists as well. You want to make sure your personal injury lawyer is exactly that, a lawyer who specializes in and has a performance track record settling and trying personal injury cases.
The Ontario Trial Lawyers Association (OTLA) is a good place to start. It is a professional organization that’s membership is exclusively restricted to plaintiff personal injury lawyers. If your lawyer, or the one you’re considering is a member of OTLA you know they are the right kind of lawyer for your situation. If they are not, you may want to ask them why.
How do you know which Personal Injury Lawyer is a Good One?
The lawyer you choose is about choosing a relationship that you’re going to have for years, not months. Your case will require their attention to both your lawsuit and your recovery. Most importantly you want a lawyer that is competent and capable, but you also want a lawyer that you feel comfortable talking to on a regular basis.
Your lawyer should listen to you, respond to your needs and be able to answer any questions you might have in a straightforward manner. You also don’t want a lawyer that doesn’t have a track record of taking cases to trial when it matters. Too often personal injury lawyers who aren’t willing to commit to the long term will try to settle quickly, preventing you from getting the compensation you need for your recovery.
