Research to Do
This is not something that I wouldn’t just look at a TV ad and just go to that lawyer and sign up with a lawyer, especially if you have a very, very serious case where you had various significant injuries. I think you need to do a number of things to determine whether the attorneys that you are meeting are the right attorneys for you.
Google The Firm or Attorney
So the first thing that I would do, and I presume almost everyone these days would do when an attorney is recommended is you Google the firm or if it’s an individual attorney, that attorney. And when you Google them, you’re obviously going to get information about that attorney. What would I be looking for?
What do Client Reviews and Peer Reviews Say?
Well, one of the things I’d be trying to find out is what do client review say and what do peer review say about this firm or about this attorney? And client reviews are great to look at. You do have to be cautious. We all know in the world of Google reviews and Yelp reviews that there are fake reviews and reviews that aren’t entirely honest, but I think now people have gotten pretty good at figuring out what’s truthful and what seems to be an exaggeration or untruthful when looking at reviews. And so obviously the same standard when you’re looking at a restaurant and their review is the same kind of critical thinking will be applied.
You want to look at what people are saying, clients are saying about these attorneys. And if it’s all five-star reviews and they’re saying that the attorneys are great, that’s fantastic. By the way, even if there are a few negative reviews, that can certainly happen. As we know, not everybody is always a hundred percent satisfied. Even if an attorney has done great work or really gave their best effort. It’s certainly not one bad review, I would not hire an attorney. I would look at the sum of all the reviews and make that determination.
Things that I would be on the lookout for that would make me hesitate to want to hire a particular personal injury attorney is if there are a number of complaints. And especially if those complaints are consistent about the type of complaint it is. Say, it’s a complaint about attorneys not getting back to them. So if there are 10 people out of 50 that reviews it, say the attorney doesn’t get back to them, well, I mean then you have to start to think, “Well, maybe this attorney is not going to be as responsive as I’m going to want him to be.”
If the attorney is unprepared and there are a number of reviews that are saying that he’s unprepared, that would certainly be another red flag for me. I don’t think I would want to go to any attorney where there are a number of reviews that said he’s unprepared. Preparation is probably the most important thing that an attorney can do for a client. So that’s really, really high up on the list.
Now I mentioned peer reviews as well. And so that’s if another attorney is reviewing an attorney. And certainly we give a lot of weight to those types of reviews because if it’s somebody that’s in the business and somebody who knows what a good attorney is, a good personal injury attorney is, and a not so good personal injury attorney is, that type of person, you might want to take that person’s advice and give it even more credence potentially than a client.
So peer reviews is another area that we look at to determine whether an attorney, a personal injury attorney is right for you.
Have They Been Recognized by Reputable Organizations?
Other things that we would be looking at when we do our internet search is we want to see if they are recognized by any publications that recognize excellence in the law. And a few of those publications you’ve probably heard of. One is called Super Lawyers. It’s a trademark name. It’s a company that looks at a variety of criteria and then will make the determination as to whether an attorney can receive a super lawyer status.
So that’s one area you might want to look at and see. There’s another very well respected publication called Best Lawyers. They worked with US News and World Report for years. I don’t know if they still are, but they still are called Best Lawyers and that’s another trademark name. And once again, they do a selection process and so it’s not everybody in the world can get that title as being considered a best lawyer.
There are so many other companies that do this, and I’ll be frank with you, a lot of them do this just to make money. I get calls every single day with all sorts of different types of common ones. Top 10 med mal attorneys, top 100 this attorney, top left-hand turn attorneys. I mean, it’s just incredible because they know that they can charge for advertising once they make these publications.
So I wouldn’t say that you should look at every single one of these publications because some of them are just simply they will give the award to anybody who’s willing to pay for the award. The two that stick out in my mind as being reputable are super lawyers and best lawyers. So another thing you’re going to want to look at is you want to look at their website. And these days, if you don’t have a website, I would be concerned because these days a firm that is running a personal injury practice in general, if they’re successful, they’re likely going to have a web page.
Check Their Settlement and Verdict Results
Then you can search the web page to see a number of different things. Number one, you could see whether they have had success in court and certainly if attorneys have done well in court, they will normally put that on their website. And so verdicts and successful verdicts, if there are a number of those on someone’s website that certainly is a factor that I would take into account. It’s not a guarantee that you are going to get the same result. Every case is different, but that’s certainly something that I would be looking for.
Also, settlements. You want to make sure that the firm has had a number of… Especially if your case is significant, has had a number of significant settlements. You also may be able to determine from the website whether they’ve handled a case such as yours and whether they’ve been successful at it. So that’s another area that you can look by looking at the website. Another thing you can do on the website is you can see whether the person has any lectures or videos.
I’m doing this blog right now. So if someone Googled my name, they likely would see this video and they’d see me and they could size me up and make a determination as to whether I would be a good fit for them as a personal injury attorney. So those are some of the areas that I would do research on at home before I would even meet with an attorney, get on the internet, Google the lawyer, Google the firm, look at their credentials, look at what they’ve done, make sure that there are no red flags.
Another thing that you should be looking at is whether there’s ever been any sort of disciplinary action brought against them. And certainly that’s something that’s taken into account and it’s been happening more than once. I would never say, “Don’t go see a lawyer,” but if a lawyer is consistently getting in trouble with the disciplinary committee, that is a red flag and I would tend to want to avoid that type of attorney. So that’s the type of research you can do.
Questions to Ask
So when you get to the firm and they’re interviewing you, you are also interviewing them and you want to find out a number of things about them.
How Long Have They Been Handling Personal Injury Cases?
The first thing in my mind is how long how they’ve been handling personal injury cases. This is a huge, huge, huge doctor in determining whether to hire a personal injury attorney. And I’m not saying that a young attorney can’t be a good attorney, or certainly prodigies and people that pick up the field very, very quickly.
But in general, the law is very complicated and even the law of personal injury is very complicated and a lot of people unfortunately dive in and think, “Well, this is going to be easy enough. It’s just trip and falls and car accidents. How complicated can it be?” And the answer is it’s very complicated. There are lots of laws regarding the sidewalk and who is responsible, whether it’s the city, whether it’s the adjoining landowner. There are factors as to how many people are in the adjoining landowner’s property.
There’s just so many things to work through. And when you assume municipality, getting the right name. There are a lot of different entities out there. There’s the New York City Transit Authority. There’s the Metropolitan Transit authority. There is the Long Island Bus company. So there are just a number of ways to make mistakes if you’re not experienced doing this. So I’ve been doing it for 30 years, and I’ll be frank, I’m constantly learning.
There’s still new stuff to learn. The law is constantly changing. But after 30 years, I have a huge base of knowledge. And I think that when you look at experience, it’s a huge factor. People that are more confident when they’ve been doing it for longer, people have more mastery of the material when they’ve been doing it for longer, in general. And so that’s certainly a factor that you want to look at.
Somebody who’s fresh out of law school that might not be the right pick to run with your case. Maybe it’s somebody who’s just a superstar who just is amazing and you get lucky and lightning strikes for you. But for the most part, I would be looking for an experienced lawyer who has been handling personal injury cases for a number of years.
What Percentage of Their Practice Is Devoted to Prosecuting Personal Injury Cases?
The other thing, and one of the other things I’d be looking for is what percentage of the practice is dedicated to handling personal injury cases? Most firms or a lot of the firms in New York that do this exclusively do personal injury exclusively.
And I’m not saying necessarily that a firm that doesn’t do personal injury work exclusively is a firm not worth hiring because there are firms that do a number of different things well. It just is that if the firm doesn’t do any personal injury, or let’s say they dabble in it, they have 5% of their cases or personal injury cases or 10%, well, then they might not have the same type of expertise as if they’re putting all of their time into these types of cases.
It’s not an area in my mind that you can just dabble in because the law is constantly changing and there’s a lot at stake and it’s much more complex than people realize.
Do They Handle Personal Injury Cases That Have Been Sent to Them by Other Lawyers?
Another thing I’d be asking is whether they handle personal injury cases for other attorneys. And the reason I say that is because if an attorney is good enough to be hired by a fellow attorney who’s in the same business, who may even do the same work, maybe a personal injury attorney but doesn’t try cases or he is not used to dealing with larger cases, that’s a very good sign. That’s a sign that the attorney that you’re speaking to is well respected in the business as so well respected that other lawyers are giving this lawyer or this firm cases.
And with our firm, that is true. We get a lot of referrals from other attorneys. We try cases for other firms, and I do think it does speak to the mastery of personal injury law when you are hired by other good lawyers to do work for them that they feel that they can’t do. So that’s something that I would look at.
What is the Fee Arrangement?
The next thing is talk to them about the fee arrangement. Now, this is something that’s very confusing, I think for people. They watch TV and you see no recovery, no fee, free consultation. Are these special? Are these magical things that these people are offering that other people aren’t offering? And the answer is no. Pretty much every personal injury attorney does a free consultation because it’s a contingency basis. So if the lawyer doesn’t win, obviously the client doesn’t get any money, but the lawyer doesn’t get any money either.
So the lawyer is going to pick cases that he thinks he’s going to be successful with. So at the onset of he’s giving a consultation, it would be, in my mind, not great to do a consultation and turn down a case because now the person is out of pocket with really no way of ever recovering that money again. So free consultation is very, very common in the personal injury world. I would say you’d see it 99% of the time. So that’s nothing special. And the other thing, the no recovery, no fee.
That’s also not special because plaintiff’s attorneys work on a contingency fee basis. And so every attorney that you’re going to hire in the world of personal injury in New York is going to not charge a fee if they don’t get a recovery because that is how contingency worked. It’s not special. The firm is not offering you anything special. That is what every firm does. The only issue, really the only issue is what happens with the expenses on the case.
Some attorneys will lay out the expenses on the case and if the case is unsuccessful, they won’t ask the client for their money back. That’s what our firm does. In the rare event, and it has happened, but it doesn’t happen too often, but in the rare event, we’re not successful and we’ve laid out money on the case, we eat it. And that’s just how it is. And I think most attorneys do that, but that’s certainly something worth asking.
But as far as the fee, most of them are going to have the standard one third retainer and expenses will either be paid by the attorney where they will then pay themselves back and then take their fee. Or if the client wants to pay for it, the client can pay for it out of pocket. And obviously then that money doesn’t come out at the end to the attorney that would already been paid for by the client. Typically, it’s the lawyers that pay the expenses. Most clients don’t have the financial wherewithal to fund these cases. They can get quite expensive to litigate.
Do They Try Personal Injury Cases in Court?
So next thing I would want to know is if they try cases, if you’re going to a firm that doesn’t have trial lawyers that doesn’t take verdicts, then it’s likely that their awards will not be as large as a firm that will take verdicts because insurance companies are worried about trials and they’re worried about verdicts.
And if they know that you’re just going to settle every single case and never take a verdict, then they know that they can probably get away with paying you less than they really should. So that’s another important question. Do they try cases? Does the attorney or does the firm have a trial lawyer or trial lawyers that try cases? Our firm, we have three trial lawyers. We all try cases. Obviously, ultimately, you may not want to have a verdict in a case. Sometimes it’s much better to have a settlement, but sometimes that cannot be worked out and you have to go and take a verdict and you need to be confident that your attorney can do that.
It also does increase the value of the cases that like I said, if an insurance company feels that you’ve had good fortune in the courts getting verdicts, they’re more likely to want to pay you to go away. So that’s another question I would ask.
Red Flags
So what would I be on the lookout for as far as red flags? Things that I would be concerned about if I found out these things about a particular firm or a particular lawyer, okay?
Any Lawyer That Contacts YOU to Try to Retain You
First of all, any lawyer that shows up unsolicited that was not contacted by your friends, your family, or yourself, and just shows up let’s say at a hospital or at your house, that’s to me an attorney that you don’t want to hire. That’s an attorney that is soliciting your case.
It’s actually illegal, unethical to do so. And you have to ask yourself if a guy is this… First of all, how did he get your information? He probably paid somebody off to get that information. And if this guy is so desperate and his reputation isn’t good enough that he needs to go chase you down, even though you don’t know who he is, well, what kind of lawyer is he? So that would be a red flag. Another red flag would be any lawyer that offers you money to either retain them or go see a doctor.
Any Lawyer That Offers You Money to Retain You
Once again, totally illegal. And if a lawyer is paying you to retain them, what kind of lawyer is that that needs to pay you to get you to go with them? Is that a great lawyer? Is that a lawyer with a fabulous reputation? Probably not. That’s probably somebody who’s a bottom feeding lawyer who’s not particularly good and has to pay his way into the business. So that would be another red flag.
Any Lawyer Who Claims They Have Never Lost a Case
Another red flag is lawyers who say they’ve never lost a case.
Well, one or the other is true. Either they haven’t tried enough cases or they’re not telling the truth. Because over time, if you try, I’ve been doing this for 30 years, you try enough cases, you’re going to have the occasional loss. And we’ve had very few of them. We mainly win partially because we’re very aggressive and we’re very prepared when we try cases. So that’s certainly one of the reasons why we’ve been successful.
But there are times where it can happen. You can lose a case through no fault through your own even with the greatest of effort. And so a lawyer to me who says he’s never lost a case is either a lawyer who hasn’t tried a lot of cases or is a lawyer who is trying to bamboozle you because there’s no way that you can ever guarantee that that trial is going to a hundred percent go your way.
A Lawyer Who Puts a Value on a Case Prematurely
So the other thing is guarantees. Any lawyer says, “I guarantee you I’m going to get you X dollars.” The day that they sign you up, once again, that’s not a lawyer that I would find credible because they haven’t gathered the evidence. They don’t know about the insurance at that point. They don’t know about the extent of your injury at that point. They don’t know about the extent of how the accident happened and the liability and everything that occurred leading up to the accident.
So for them to then just throw a number out at the first meeting, to me that is a sign once again that you’re being bamboozled into being retained because you’re being sold something that may or may not be true. I don’t get involved in telling my clients what their case is worth the very first time I meet them because I think that it would be very misleading.
You need to get evidence together. You need to figure the case out. You need to speak with the doctors. You need to look at the records. You need to speak with witnesses. You may need to get involved in the litigation and see how the depositions go before you really know what the value of the case is.
So a lawyer who’s guaranteeing you, they’re going to get you a number. That’s a lawyer that I would not trust.
Lawyers Who Do it All
And then lastly, I would say that… And once again, these rules are not hard and fast and there’s always the exception, but the lawyer who is the jack-of-all-trades and does a little bit of everything, these days, I think is a lawyer that I would be hesitant to use because these days there’s just a lot of specialization. The law is very, very complicated in a lot of different fields.
So matrimonial law, let’s say, it’s a very complicated area of law. So there were lawyers that just solely do matrimonial work. And then there are lawyers that solely do personal injury work. There are lawyers that solely do trusts in estates. And that’s become the trend. There used to be much more general practitioners when the law was a little bit easier to sort through. It’s become so complex that really it’s become an area, and you can’t use the word specialization. You can’t use that word in New York. You can’t because there’s no specializations. You just say concentration.
But these days, people tend in New York to concentrate into one area of the law. So if a guy does bankruptcy, criminal, real estate, the X, and X, and X and X, and by the way I do personal injury, that may not be the guy to go to if you have a significant personal injury case. You may want to go to somebody who really is eating, breathing and living these cases every single day.
So that’s basically what I would be looking for when I am trying to select a lawyer. I would spend some time on the internet. I would do some, as much research as I could. I would ask questions at the first consultation and get answers so that you feel confident with their expertise. And I would look for any red flags. And if the lawyer passes all of those checks, that may be a lawyer that you want to hire to prosecute your case. Thank you.
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