The right personal injury lawyer can make a huge impact on how your case is resolved. They can help you better understand your circumstances, maximize your payouts, and even accelerate the process in some cases.
So how do you find the best personal injury lawyer for your needs?
The Role of a Personal Injury Lawyer
Your personal injury lawyer will help you in several respects:
- Legal knowledge and experience. First, your lawyer is going to have an abundance of legal knowledge and experience. They understand all the legal aspects of personal injury cases and can help you better understand your position from a legal standpoint. They can answer all your questions, help you review the process of personal injury cases, and clarify anything that you’re confused about.
- Recommendations and advice. Second, your lawyer is going to provide you with recommendations and advice. Depending on the details of your case, they will likely recommend negotiating for a settlement to avoid a trial. If this is the case, they will provide you with recommendations designed to maximize your compensation and streamline the process as much as possible.
- Technical operations. Your lawyer is also going to handle all the technical aspects of managing a case, from filing the lawsuit to negotiating and handling the settlement amount. This way, you can stay mostly hands off.
- Negotiations. A lawyer is going to represent you during negotiations. They’re intimately familiar with negotiation tactics as well as both positive law and common law, so they can get you the highest possible settlement amount while still remaining fair and respectful of the law.
- Representation in trial. Overwhelmingly, tort cases settle out of court. It’s very likely that if you have a personal injury claim, you’ll never have to go to trial. But in the unlikely event that you do go to trial, your lawyer will represent you – and coach you through your responsibilities during the trial itself.
- Emotional support. Your lawyer isn’t your therapist and isn’t necessarily your friend, but they will likely recognize the physical and emotional turmoil of being embroiled in a personal injury case. Their legal responsibilities are most important, but they may be able to lend you emotional support along the way.
How to Find the Right Personal Injury Lawyer
There are many strategies you can use to look for candidates to be your personal injury lawyer. You can get a referral from a friend or family member, consult a legal directory, or simply conduct a search for lawyers in your area.
No matter what, you’ll need to evaluate available candidates for the following:
- Location. You’ll likely be interested in finding a local candidate for the sake of convenience, but it’s also important from a legal perspective. That’s because different areas have different laws and statutes in place; a lawyer in California may not be able to help you with a case in Idaho, simply because they don’t have familiarity with the laws there.
- Specialty. Not all lawyers are qualified to handle all cases. Most lawyers practice one or more areas of specialty; ideally, you’ll work with a lawyer who specializes in personal injury law. It’s even better if you can choose a lawyer with specific experience in cases like yours.
- Experience and results. Gravitate toward experienced lawyers. The more years they’ve been practicing, the more knowledge and expertise they’re likely to have. You can also look at past cases to see what types of results they’ve gotten from clients in the past. Based on this information, you may be able to disqualify certain candidates.
- Availability. You’ll also need to think about availability. Some law firms aren’t actively seeking new clients, and they may not be interested in taking your case. Others are interested in digging into your case, but they may be so bogged down with other work that they can’t give you the support you need.
- Compensation. In most cases, personal injury lawyers will decline to take on your case if they don’t feel they can win significant compensation. They will also require no payment if you don’t receive a settlement and no money is awarded at trial. However, you’ll typically owe your attorneys a portion of your compensation if you win; pay attention to this pricing so you know what you’re getting into.
- Communication. Finally, consider communication. The process will be much easier and much less stressful if you hire a lawyer you can easily converse with.
There are likely multiple qualified personal injury attorneys in your area who can help with a case like yours. However, some of them are going to be much better fits for your needs than others. Review a range of different candidates so you can feel confident moving forward with the best person.
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