What to consider when hiring a personal injury lawyer

The process of selecting a personal injury lawyer has been downplayed. Usually, people base their decisions on superficial and completely irrelevant aspects in determining the quality and expertise of a legal professional.

A personal injury attorney is a person who is responsible for representing you in the event that you are injured or wounded as a result of the negligence or irresponsibility of a third party, and vice versa. A personal injury lawyer will be the one to defend you in court when you are held responsible for an accident that resulted in injury to others.

Regardless of the scenario, it is extremely important that you choose a good personal injury lawyer who, in addition, you can afford and with whom you can be in complete confidence and comfort.

That task, namely, the choice of a qualified lawyer, has a certain degree of difficulty. It is therefore not a process that can be completed quickly but requires considerable time. Keep in mind that there is a time limit for filing personal injury claims: this time usually spans a period of 1 to 6 years. Although it’s a long enough time, people get carried away by disinterest and a lack of motivation and fail to manage in time.

So, for the reasons outlined above, we decided to produce an informative article with guidelines for choosing an appropriate personal injury attorney. Take note of what we will say below.

Inquiry process on candidates

Every candidate must be subjected to a process of investigation or inquiry. In this way, you will be able to evaluate whether the person fulfills the necessary requirements for the work that will be entrusted to him/her. This process of inquiry, however, involves its stages.

1) Importance of a personal injury lawyer

The first stage of the inquiry process is none other than recognition of the usefulness of hiring a personal injury attorney. As we have been commenting on in the past, this lawyer is special and has a certain uniqueness that makes him or her different from other lawyers: he or she is a professional in the legal and judicial area specialized in those cases in which a person has been injured due to the fault of a third party.

It is clear that you can either be one of the two parties: either you can be the injured person; or you can be the person accused of causing injury to a third party (assuming it wasn’t so, but you were simply wrongly accused).

The possibility of such scenarios reveals the profound importance of a personal injury attorney. However, you need to have a basic understanding of the virtues of such a specialized professional:

Court experiences: A personal injury lawyer has been in court a lot of times and has had conversations with judges, prosecutors and others. This trajectory makes him the holder of a great torrent of court experience.

Negotiation experience: A personal injury attorney is characterized by an impressive negotiating ability. It is virtually impossible not to find a professional of this kind who does not have the ability to reach satisfactory and fair deals.

Knowledge of medical procedures: A personal injury attorney is fully informed about the medical procedures that must be performed in order to counteract personal injury resulting from the accident.

Knowledge of negligence regulation and the like: A personal injury lawyer handles a fairly extensive knowledge of the legal specifications regarding negligence, liability, apportionment of blame and other legal factors involved in a personal injury case.

2) Parameters for choosing a lawyer

The selection of an excellent legal professional who specializes in personal injury cases must adhere to certain parameters. The following parameters are not the result of an arbitrary selection process. On the contrary, these parameters are basic, dictated by logic and common sense, and are recommended by any law firm. It’s a good idea to pick up paper and pen and write each one down.

Location: A very important element, but strangely excluded from most of the articles and information guides in this regard, is the candidate’s location. No matter how good if your potential representative does not come from the state where the accident took place, then they should be automatically discarded, because he or she will not have the license required by the law of each state.

Specialization: If you need legal advice for a divorce, would you hire a lawyer who specializes in defective product cases? Obviously, no. The same applies to personal injury cases (and a lot of things, actually): make sure that the lawyer is dedicated exclusively to resolving cases like yours. A simple general lawyer is not a good option.

Reputation: It is true that reputation (such as fame) can be made by morally detestable methods, so a lawyer with a wide reputation is not necessarily the most appropriate. However, a reputable lawyer is always preferable to a non-reputable lawyer. You can corroborate the lawyer’s reputation. You may find references from your own community or from people you trust deeply, such as friends or family.

Time in practice: A personal injury lawyer who doesn’t have much time in practice is an attorney who doesn’t have the experience or knowledge to ensure a victory in a personal injury case (especially considering how delicate they are). Therefore, a condition sine qua non is that the candidate must be a professional with many years of legal practice.

Behavioral record: Another essential parameter, but at the same time ignored and unnoticed, is the conduct record. By reviewing these files, you can see how the lawyer has behaved throughout his or her period of practice; you can see if complaints or grievances have been filed against him or her; and you can also see if the lawyer has not been reprimanded (license suspension, etc.). Conduct registers can be found on the Internet; most states have them uploaded. At least in California, you can review this information at the State Bar. All you have to do is enter the lawyer’s number and you will see on screen everything concerning his conduct during his years of work.

Courtroom experience: As we discussed in the first part of this article, one of the virtues of a personal injury lawyer is that he or she has come a long way through the courts. A lawyer with extensive court experience knows the workings, dynamics and movement within courts. He or she also knows judges and prosecutors, so he or she can exert more influence on them and thus position the case in your favor.

Case statistics: Last but not least, a review of the results of all the cases handled by the lawyer, i. e. statistics regarding victories (successes) and defeats (failures). Ideally, the professional should have very balanced statistics towards victories, as it is very problematic a lawyer who has numerous successful cases but at the same time has a multitude of failed cases. Balance toward success is essential to choosing a good personal injury attorney.

3) Personal references

Once you have written down all the parameters required for the process of selecting your lawyer, it’s time to start questioning your family, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and others about good personal injury lawyers. This stage of questioning can be called the search for personal references.

Naturally, personal references generate more self-confidence than reputation or fame. As we said before, reputation can be created artificially, while personal references cannot. There’s no conflict of interest between you and a friend. There is no reason why your friend, family member, etc., would lie to you about the lawyer he recommended. That is why lawyers who have multiple personal references are usually the ones who make you feel more confident.

Keep in mind that finding personal references is something that adds up some points. It’s an advantage, a plus. But you cannot and should not be guided by it exclusively. If a close friend recommends a lawyer, you should not hire that lawyer immediately. You have to analyze him properly and evaluate if he fits the requirements.

We have explained 3 stages of the inquiry process for candidates to be your personal injury attorney, but they are not the only ones. In another article, we will discuss the other stages as well as the other guidelines that must be rigorously followed if you want to get advice from a highly skilled personal injury attorney.

4) Collect information about candidates on Google

(The enumeration of this article begins in 4 because it is the continuation or sequel to our previous article).

The fourth stage in the inquiry process of your future legal representative is collecting information about that candidate on Google. You should be aware that there is a possibility that there is no data on Google about that lawyer or that you simply won’t get adequate information to form a substantiated opinion.

After all, Google is nothing more than a tool at your disposal, so it’s not essential. However, it is a helpful resource in the process of choosing your personal injury attorney. Try to get candidate information on Google. It is recommended that you link Google search with other research methods: it increases the chances of achieving your goal.

What should you take into account when doing a Google search? The best recommendation in this matter is the use of keywords. The use of keywords is helpful for Google to provide all the results related to the lawyer. For example, if the lawyer is called “Luis Lopez”, you should put something like this in the Google search engine: “Luis Lopez personal injury lawyer California” or “Luis Lopez personal accidents” or the simplest of all: “Luis Lopez lawyer”.

In the example we have used, the name is not helpful because it is very common, so there may be thousands of lawyers named Luis Lopez. That’s why you should also specify: California personal injury lawyer. Now, if the lawyer doesn’t have a common name, then you can easily know whether there is information about that lawyer on Google or not.

The lawyer may be working for a law firm and only some of his personal details appear, but little more. In these cases, you should place the magnifying glass in the law firm and analyze aspects such as exercise time, creation date, case statistics, reputation, etc. In short, all the parameters we talked about in the last article.

5) Use specialized web services

We said that Google isn’t the only tool you can use, so you’re wondering what others are. Well, one of them is to use web services specialized in promoting lawyers with more expertise in the area and region where you live. However, you must carefully investigate the web service you are going to use, since a large number of them are merely advertising pages; that is, pages that promote only those lawyers who offer them large amounts of money.

Lawyers.com: No doubt lawyers.com is one of the best web services in this matter. When you enter the page, you only need to enter in the search engine the details of the lawyer you are looking for (see, if you require a personal injury attorney or a divorce lawyer, for example) and the city/state where you require the lawyer (you will obviously not hire a Louisiana lawyer, for example, to handle a New York case). Once the page processes that data, it will show all the attorneys who match your requirements, along with their valuable data, such as reputation, rankings, phone numbers or other contact details, website, among others. It is essential that you review all of this information, but place the magnifying glass on references, reputation or rankings, as it shows the qualification that other people have made of that lawyer.

Didn’t lawyers.com convince you? Want to try other web services? Don’t worry: take a look at findlaw or nolo. These pages function in the same way as lawyers.com, with the difference that the latter enjoys a much more elaborate rating and/or reputation system. It is a good idea to use these complementary, specialized web services and do not rely on just one. One of the things you can do is, after you’ve found a lawyer at findlaw, research that lawyer on lawyers.com so you’ll have more information, especially about reputation or rankings.

6) Telephone calls

Telephone technology is also available: you can use it to your advantage to find a good personal injury lawyer. Simply call the buffets, law firms and/or associations of lawyers, because a specialized and expert person will assist you and provide you with information that will be very useful.

Personal contact, for example, can be a very effective method of obtaining information associated with the behavior of the lawyer in question. Information you can’t get from a Google search or official records.

State Bar: In the first place, you should contact by phone the Association Bar of the state where you require legal services. The phone numbers can be found on the website of each State Bar, so you’ll have no difficulty locating them. There are two reasons why we put the State Bar in the first place: the first is that it is the state’s official law firm; the second is that these agencies have a section dedicated to serving those who seek or need a lawyer. You can call them and be sure they will help you as much as possible.

County Bar: You probably didn’t know it, but not only do the states have an Association Bar, but some counties do too. Many of these County Bars have their own websites, where you can find phone numbers. These County Bars also have a service for persons seeking lawyer, so if you’re lucky, you can get high-level advice in your own county. For example, the State of California’s Contra Costa County is one of those with a County Bar, so its residents are far ahead in that regard.

Legal firms: It is also recommended that you make phone calls to different legal firms, regardless of whether you have obtained a lawyer who works for a firm or not. Most firms offer free consultations, so feel free to contact any of them for guidance and advice. In case you already have a lawyer in your sights and he is working for a firm, calling them will allow you to collect very good data and you can make a decision with much more security and confidence.

7) Make a list of your preferences

At this point and having implemented to the letter each of the recommendations that have been expressed, it is very likely that you have already selected at least 20 lawyers. However, you should reduce your preferences and limit the number of lawyers to a maximum of 10. To do this, make a list of those 10 lawyers; if you want, you can order them from highest (preferably) to lowest (preferably).

This way, you will be recording the results of your research. Now, once you have made that list, you must do another investigation, where you will examine, carefully and calmly, each of the elements that have merited the candidates a place on that list. The choice of a personal injury attorney should be guided by logical parameters, but the subjective component, namely, comfort and client confidence, cannot be ignored.

So, among those 10 candidates, you must choose the one who balances the logical and subjective components: the one who meets the requirements and the established parameters, but at the same time produces comfort.

It should be made clear that before hiring a lawyer, it is necessary to carry out other stages so that your decision is as well founded as possible. But the explanation of these stages will be explained in another article. Add our page to favorites and watch out for that article as it comes out.

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