How to Find a Lawyer

If you're you've got a serious or complicated injury claim you'd probably be wise to seek the advice of a lawyer. However, don't just go to any lawyer for help with your claim. Search for a lawyer who has plenty of experience in representing injured individuals (plaintiffs) with regard to personal injury claims.

Finding an Experienced Lawyer

Many ways exist for you to find an experienced personal injury lawyer. Once you have put together a list, make sure that you compare the individual lawyers. Meet with each of them and discuss your claim before you decide which one to hire but be prepared for rejection. Many lawyers will not take cases if they fall below a particular potential recovery amount or if the claim is vague.

Where to look for lawyers:

Friends and Acquaintances

Speak to friends or colleagues who have had the experience of being represented by a lawyer in through their own personal injury claim. If your friend or colleagues has good things to say about a lawyer put the lawyer on your list. However, never make a decision about a lawyer solely on the basis of another's recommendation. Different people will respond differently to lawyers' styles and personalities. Also never make up your mind to hire a lawyer until you've met them in person, discussed your case and feel comfortable working with them.

Lawyer Directory

Nolo offers a Unique Lawyer Directory that provides a comprehensive profile for each attorney and includes information that will help you select the right attorney for you. The profiles tell you about their experience, education and fees, and most importantly, the their general philosophy of practicing law. Nolo has confirmed that every listed attorney has a valid license and is in good standing with their bar association. Each has taken a pledge to communicate regularly with their client, provide a fair estimate of the time and cost involved and provide you with a clear, written agreement that tells you exactly how they will handle your claim and how you will be charged. Nolo's lawyer directory covers California, Washington, Oregon, and Arizona and is being expanded to other metropolitan areas.

Other Lawyers

You can seek a referral to an experienced personal injury lawyer through other lawyers you have come into contact with. Lawyers often refer cases to each other and many will know someone who deals with personal injury cases. However, as with referrals from friends or colleagues, never simply take a lawyer's referral without checking further.

Referral Services

Almost all local bar associations have referral services where the names of lawyers are available. There is a large variation in the quality of these, even though they are supposed to be approved by the state bar association. Some lawyer referral services screen attorneys and recommend only those attorneys with particular qualifications past experience. However, other services ten to list any attorney in good standing who maintains liability insurance. Before picking a lawyer referral service, ascertain what its criteria are for including an attorney and how they are screened.

However, you may not get an insight into the lawyer's philosophy like whether the lawyer is willing to spend time to be your legal coach or the nature of their personality. Again, never make a decision about a bar referral lawyer until you have met and interviewed them.

Choosing the Best Lawyer for You

To find out whether a lawyer is right for you, meet with them and discuss your claim and any meaningful ways of going forward with it. Ensure that you take along copies of all your documents like the police report, medical records, any bills, loss of income information and all correspondence between yourself and the insurance company. Generally speaking, lawyers do not make a charge for the first consultation. However, before the meeting takes place, ascertain whether or not you will be charged for the first interview. If it turns out that there is a charge, go elsewhere.

General Experience

After you have discussed your case with the lawyer, there are some basic items you will want to ascertain:

• How long has the practice existed?
• Approximately what percentage of the practice is to do with personal injury cases?
• Is it plaintiffs or defendants that are most often represented? Beware of lawyers who mainly have experience with personal injury cases for defendants, they may be too biased towards the attitudes of insurance companies and may not try as hard as they would otherwise.
• Would the lawyer handle your case personally or pass it along to a less experienced colleague in the practice? Its normal for more than one attorney to work on the same case and to have less experienced attorneys handle the more routine tasks. Find out who would have responsibility for your claims case and who you would be dealing wit. If there is to be another lawyer involved also ask to meet that one as well.

Once you have discussed the facts about your case and the details of all your communications with the insurance company, it should be possible to get some information from the attorney about how much they consider your case to be worth and the scale of difficulty of getting the insurance company to part with that sum of money. At this point you should tell the attorney which of the following you require them to do on your behalf:

• Achieve a settlement amount with as few costs and as little hassle as it is possible to do.
• Achieve a larger amount than the one that the insurance company has offered you in the minimum of time.
• Achieve the maximum regardless of the timescale.

Paying and Handling Your Attorney