Millions of people die while driving every year and many more are injured. If you’ve been involved in an accident and find yourself hurt in a way that’s likely to lead to monetary loss, you may be entitled to compensation.
Collecting that compensation, however, can be a challenge.
Insurance companies put up several barriers to bar defendants from obtaining entitlements. These barriers may result in paltry cash offers that hover well-below what a court might award you.
That’s why choosing attorneys to help you fight for accident compensation is a must if you’re dedicated to maximizing your case’s value. But which attorney should you choose to hire?
To filter through your legal options, we recommend mulling over these key considerations.
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1Accident Specialty
Law is very nuanced and spans thousands of subjects and specialties.
For that reason, you don’t want to hire a consumer fraud attorney that dabbles in car cases to fight your car case. Why bother with that when you could bring on a person that spends every day of their career learning the ins and outs of accident cases?
Show a strong preference for lawyers that specifically market themselves as accident lawyers.
2Years in Practice
In the legal field, experience matters. Every year of experience a firm has under their belt is a year filled with learning they’ll apply to your case to ensure it goes as smoothly as possible.
While we understand that every lawyer needs to start somewhere, the best way to avoid rookie mistakes like missing deadlines, inappropriate negotiations, and more is to go with someone that’s not a rookie.
In addition to years in practice mitigating the risk of mistakes, a lawyer/film that has been working for a long time has drummed up enough business to stay afloat. That’s telling of their ability to drive favorable rulings.
3Consultation Fees
If you’ve never hired an attorney, you may be worried that you’ll have to pay hundreds of dollars just to have a discussion with a legal professional. While that may be the case for certain legal niches, in the accident niche, consultations are typically free.
Given that standard, we recommend relegating your business to lawyers/firms that are willing to hear and opine on your case without charging you. After all, why should you pay a person to weigh in on your case when there’s plenty of qualified people out there that will do the same job at no charge?
4Legal Fees
A common question we get asked by people that are choosing attorneys for their accident is, “Do lawyers still get paid if they lose?”
In the case of accident attorneys, in most instances, attorneys will not charge clients if they can’t win them money. That’s because most accident attorneys work on contingency.
That means their pay is contingent on them getting you paid. They simply take a percentage of the winnings.
Note that in other legal niches (say criminal law) attorneys almost always get paid whether they win or lose. Most attorneys work on retainers that even pre-pay them for their services.
5Reputation
What good is an attorney that is universally disliked by the people they work with? In our estimation, not very good at all.
The beauty of today is that it’s not hard to find out what people feel about a particular legal professional. All you have to do is Google their name and see what references and reviews pop up online.
Attorneys that have over 10 reviews and have an average of 4+ stars on popular review platforms would be well worth engaging. Attorneys with no reviews or plenty of bad reviews should be approached with caution.
6Track Record
As we’ve mentioned, most attorneys in the accident arena work on contingency. Because of that, to stay in business, they have to have a pretty good track record of winning.
Still, it never hurts to ask an attorney how often they lose so you can get a sense of what the odds are of you falling short should you end up working with them.
Most attorneys will win enough that they’ll be very transparent about their win/loss percentages. Others may be coy about sharing this information.
Attorneys that aren’t willing to be transparent with you are best avoided as they’ll likely showcase non-transparent tendencies in other ways during your dealings that could be more destructive.
7How You Vibe
At the end of the day, no matter how great an attorney is, if they make you feel uncomfortable, you’re better off avoiding their services.
You may be working with your accident attorney a lot. This is particularly true if your case ends up going to trial.
Having a great rapport with your legal representation can make the grueling process of negotiating a settlement post-accident a lot more palatable.
We Hope Our Tips Make Your Choosing Attorneys Process Simper
Choosing attorneys can be a stressful process given the sheer volume of options you’ll have. We hope that by running prospective legal services through the filters we’ve shared, you’ll be able to more efficiently screen and find the perfect fit for your needs.
Another thing to note is that accident attorneys are likely to be as selective about you as you are about them. That’s because accident attorneys working on contingency only want to work with cases that look like sure-fire winners.
Don’t get discouraged if your case gets turned down and feel free to lean on more of the tips we have available in our blog for additional guidance.
