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Originally Posted On: https://wmpc-lawyers.com/11-factors-to-consider-before-hiring-a-personal-injury-attorney/

 

Were you recently involved in a car accident that forced you to seek medical care? Did you get into an accident at work that required you to head to a hospital? Or did you sustain some other kind of injury that was caused by someone else?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you might want to consider reaching out to a personal injury attorney ASAP. They can help you decide if you might have a strong enough personal injury case to go to court.

Before hiring a lawyer to handle your personal injury lawsuit, though, you should make sure that you call on the right one for help. There are over 1.3 million lawyers in the country right now, which can sometimes make it difficult for you to do this.

Want to make your decision on hiring an attorney a whole lot easier? We’ve put together a list of 11 factors you should keep in mind when trying to track down a great personal injury attorney. Take a look at them below.

1. Location

If you choose to go through with filing a personal injury lawsuit after hiring a personal injury attorney, you’re going to need to take quite a few trips to a lawyer’s office. For this reason, you should make sure you pick a personal injury lawyer with an office in the right location.

To start, you should Google “personal injury attorney near me” to see what the options in your immediate area will be. From there, you’ll then want to look around for a lawyer that has an office that will be very easy to access.

If you end up going with a personal injury attorney that is all the way across town or, worse, in a different town, it might make your case more stressful than it should be. Using a lawyer that is a lot closer to home will make it so simple to get back and forth to and from meetings with your lawyer.

2. Education

Once you have some idea of which personal injury attorneys operate in the general vicinity of your home, you should try to obtain more information on each of them. You should be able to do this by visiting their websites.

On a personal injury attorney’s website, you’ll be able to read all about them. You can see which law school they attended and how they did when they were in law school.

You don’t necessarily need to hire a personal injury attorney who graduated from one of the most prestigious law schools in the country. But you should make it your mission to locate one that got a great education at a respectable law school. You’ll feel so much better having a lawyer like this in your corner when you start working on building a case for yourself.

3. Experience

In addition to checking to see which law school a personal injury attorney went to while you’re on their website, you should also sneak a peek at how much experience they have. The more experience a personal injury lawyer has, the better off you’re going to be in the end.

The personal injury attorney that you decide to work with should have a whole lot of experience on the personal injury side of things. They should also have a whole lot of courtroom experience just in case your personal injury lawsuit ends up going to court when everything is all said and done.

You don’t need to pick out a personal injury attorney that has been practicing law for 40 years to enjoy a great experience with them. But they should have at least a few years under their belt.

4. Expertise

The total number of personal injury cases filed in recent years has surged dramatically. There are more of these cases being filed than in past years by a wide margin.

But it’s worth noting that not all personal injury cases are created equal. Some of them involve car accidents, while others have to do with workplace accidents. There are also personal injury cases that include:

• Truck accidents
• Bicycle accidents
• Wrongful death accidents
• And more

Your goal when you’re on the hunt for a personal injury attorney should be to find one that knows the specific aspect of personal injury law that you’ll need help with. So if you were in, say, a truck accident, your lawyer should have expertise in this particular type of personal injury case.

The last thing that you want to do is hire a personal injury attorney who only knows how to work on certain types of personal injury cases and have them represent you. It might not lead to the best results at the end of your case.

5. Certifications

When you sit down with a personal injury attorney to discuss your case, you want to know that they’re certified in the legal industry. They should, first and foremost, be listed as active members by the local bar association.

You should also ask a personal injury attorney which other memberships they might have to different legal organizations. A good lawyer is going to join as many organizations as they can and get certified by them so that they’re able to do a better job overall.

If it doesn’t seem as though a personal injury attorney has shown much interest in becoming certified, that could be a big red flag. They might not have the credentials that they’ll need to do a fantastic job while they’re representing you in your personal injury case.

6. Reputation

You wouldn’t hire a landscaper to cut your grass or a contractor to remodel your kitchen without reading online reviews for them. So why would you hire a personal injury attorney without taking a look at the reviews that their clients have left for them in the past?

Ideally, you want to put your personal injury case into the hands of a personal injury lawyer who has a great reputation among those in your community. You should read as many online reviews as you can for them so that you’re able to see what they’re all about.

If a personal injury attorney doesn’t come highly recommended by others, you should move on to your other options. There are too many good lawyers out there for you to get stuck working with one that hasn’t treated others well over the years.

7. Communication

The communication between yourself and the personal injury attorney that you hire will be of the utmost importance throughout your case. If you aren’t able to communicate clearly with your lawyer, it might hurt your chances of claiming a victory in court.

With this in mind, you should put a personal injury attorney’s communication skills to the test from the start. You should gauge how quickly they respond to your initial call or email, and you should also rate their response based on how warm of a welcome you get and how interested they seem to be in working with you.

If you struggle to touch base with a personal injury attorney from the beginning, that isn’t going to bode well for you down the line. You don’t want to end up with a lawyer that isn’t going to get back to you when you have questions or concerns that you would like to express to them.

8. Customer Service

You aren’t going to need to hire a personal injury attorney who is the nicest person in the world to get a successful outcome in your personal injury case. You will want to have a lawyer on your side who has a little bit of an edge to them.

But at the same time, you want to hire a personal injury attorney who is going to be very professional every time you speak with them. They should recognize the importance of providing you with good customer service and see to it that you get the customer service you deserve every time they interact with you.

You shouldn’t dread taking a trip down to your personal injury attorney’s office. You should look forward to it and come to develop a wonderful rapport with your lawyer.

9. Cost

Unlike other types of attorneys, you won’t usually have to pay a personal injury attorney by the hour upfront. Instead, you’ll have to pay them a contingency fee at the end of your case if it’s successful.

But this contingency fee can vary quite a bit from one personal injury lawyer to the next. Some personal injury attorneys charge a 15% contingency fee, while others charge a 40% contingency fee.

Because of this, you’ll want to try to shop around for a personal injury attorney and find one who isn’t going to break the bank. This won’t always mean hiring the cheapest lawyer you can find. But you shouldn’t be shy about calling around to different lawyers to see which ones will offer the most competitive fees to you.

Otherwise, you might not end up collecting as much money as you should at the end of your personal injury lawsuit. You could actually lose money in the end, even if you were victorious in court.

10. Success Rate

Earlier, we stressed the importance of reading online reviews for different personal injury attorneys. These reviews will shed a lot of light on which lawyers in your area do the best job when working on personal injury cases.

But this is just one way to evaluate a personal injury attorney’s success rate. You can also reach out to different lawyers and have them tell you about how much success they’ve had over time.

You aren’t going to want to hire a personal injury attorney who has routinely struggled to get big payouts for their clients. Those who have enjoyed success will usually be more than happy to tell you all about the payouts that they’ve been able to earn for their clients.

11. Availability

There are obviously more than enough personal injury attorneys to go around at this time. But there are some personal injury lawyers who have very busy schedules because of how many clients they have.

Don’t be afraid to ask personal injury attorneys to tell you how much availability they have in their schedules. If it sounds like they have a lot on their plates right now, that could be reason enough to see which other lawyers are out there.

You aren’t going to want to enlist the services of a personal injury attorney who has a schedule that’s wide open. That might suggest that they aren’t the best at what they do.

But you also don’t want to work with a personal injury attorney who is clearly overwhelmed already. They might not be able to devote enough of their time and energy to your case. It could hinder your ability to put together the strongest case possible.

Call Us the Next Time You Need a Personal Injury Attorney

There won’t be any shortage of options when you’re in the market for a personal injury attorney. You should be able to find dozens of available lawyers in your area.

We invite you to call us when you need help piecing together a personal injury case. Our attorneys have the education, experience, and expertise that it’ll take to put you in a position to win your case.

Would you like to learn more about how we can help you with your personal injury case? Contact us today to get more information on our lawyers and how they can assist you.