As we discussed on Law & Disorder Wednesday, some of the toughest personal injury calls I get concern the problems that I can’t solve. For example, the other day I received a call about a car accident where the person had already agreed on the settlement. After I looked at the facts, I could tell that the amount of the settlement was terrible considering their damages.
It isn’t unusual for someone to hire a law firm in an accident case and not know which attorney will be representing them. A lot of firms use what they call investigators to sign up their cases and then the only one involved in the case is a paralegal.
I am licensed in 18 states and all of them hold the attorney responsible for their employee’s actions. That being the case, there is no way that I’m going to allow a case to be settled without knowing we didn’t do everything we could. It’s simply bad business and I wouldn’t want it to happen to someone I cared about.
The big problem normally concerns not setting the proper expectations with a client and not making sure they understand the legal process. I’ve discovered that the more my clients know the happier they are with the decisions we are helping them make.
The big takeaway from this is that if a person doesn’t understand what’s going on in their case and their attorney is not making it clear, then they should call another attorney to get a second opinion. We’ve helped so many clients when they got to us before they made a terrible decision that would have negatively affected them for years.
Choosing an attorney can be a tough thing to do especially if you hire a firm before knowing who your actual attorney will be. At a minimum, before you sign any representation agreement ask for the name of the attorney who will be responsible and in charge of your case.
Jeffrey S. Kaufman is currently licensed to practice law in Florida and seventeen other states. Jeffrey can be found on Justia Lawyers, Martindale Hubble, and HG.org
For more information please visit; Kaufmanlynd.com or Whenyouneedus.com