If you’ve been injured in an accident recently and are looking for representation, the last resource you want to use is late-night television ads. These are the ambulance chasers you hear about. They operate primarily to settle for whatever the insurance company is offering – usually a fraction of what you require for medical bills. This is standard practice for such attorneys, who exist solely because of unhelpful terms like “fast turnover” and “high volume”.
If you want a lawyer looking out for your best interest, some light homework is required. But it’ll save you the hassle of dealing with incompetent or unsympathetic attorneys. An attorney desperately running an ad for the lonely and terminally sleep deprived won’t help you, but leveraging a firm like JTL out of Downey, California would provide the expert legal aid necessary to win a complicated injury case.
But before you take any recommendations, have a list of questions at the ready to satisfy any concerns you might have. Here are a few helpful pieces of advice for making your selection.
See What Their Colleagues Say
There are multiple sites online that monitor an injury lawyer’s reputation among other firms. If you’re looking for a quality attorney, there’s no better judge of their abilities than their peers. Below are a few of the websites that monitor lawyers across the nation.
– The Martindale-Hubbell Bar Registry
Avoid Solicitation Letters
There’s been a recent rise in attorneys hiring aides to procure accident reports from police, then send letters soliciting the injured party. In fact, someone in an accident can receive between 10 to 15 such letters. It’s not only an irritant, it’s fairly unscrupulous. But there’s no law preventing it.
Most of the firms that send such letters are the ambulance-chasing firms that are willing to settle for less we warned you about earlier, so it’s best just to throw any solicitation letters directly in recycling.
Ask Their Referral Rate
When meeting with your attorney for the first time, always be sure to ask what percentage of their clients came to them on a referral basis. This is always a great barometer of how successful they’ve been with previous clients, as if they’ve been recommended, they clearly did their job well.
You should also always ask about their history, where they studied, how long they’ve practiced and any of the general information you would want to know with any lawyer.
The world of personal injury is fraught with less-than-dignified lawyers looking to make a quick buck – that much you’ve seen on television. What’s underrepresented are the lawyers that are genuinely trying to help those in need, because for every ambulance chaser, there is a dedicated attorney trying to see their client’s needs are met.