The process of selecting a personal injury lawyer has been greatly reduced. Usually, people base their decisions on superficial and completely irrelevant aspects when determining the quality and expertise of a professional in the legal area.
A personal injury lawyer is the person responsible for assuming your representation in case you have received damages, injuries or injuries as a result of the negligence or irresponsibility of a third party. And also the other way round: a personal injury lawyer will be the one who defends you in a jury when you are held responsible for an accident that caused injuries to third parties.
Regardless of the scenario, it is extremely important that you choose a good personal injury lawyer that, in addition, you can afford and with which you can be in full confidence and comfort.
And this task, namely the choice of a suitable lawyer, has some degree of difficulty. Therefore, it is not a process that can be completed quickly, but requires considerable time. However, you should bear in mind that there is a time limit for the filing of personal injury claims: this time usually covers a period of 1 to 6 years. Although it is a long enough time, people get carried away by disinterest and demotivation and fail to do the management on time.
Therefore, for the reasons stated above, we decided to prepare an informative article with the guidelines to follow to choose an appropriate personal injury lawyer. Take note of what we will say next.
Process of inquiry about the candidates
Every candidate must be subjected to a process of investigation or inquiry. In this way, you will be able to evaluate if the person fulfills the necessary requirements for the work that will be entrusted to him. This process of inquiry, however, involves its stages.
1) Importance of a personal injury lawyer
The first stage of the investigation process is none other than the recognition of the usefulness of hiring a personal injury lawyer. As we had been commenting moments ago, this lawyer is special and has a certain peculiarity that gives him difference with respect to other lawyers: he is a legal and legal professional specialized in those cases in which a person has been injured by a third party .
It is clear that you can be one of the two parties: either you can be the injured person; Or you can be the person accused of causing injuries to a third party (assuming it was not like that, but you were simply unfairly accused).
The possibility of such scenarios reveals the profound importance of a personal injury lawyer. Now, it is necessary that you have a basic notion of the virtues available to such a specialized professional:
- Experiences in court: A personal injury lawyer has been a number of times in court and has had conversations with judges, prosecutors, among others. This trajectory makes him possessor of a great torrent of experience in courts.
- Experience in negotiation: A personal injury lawyer is characterized by having an impressive capacity for negotiation. It is practically impossible not to find a professional of this class who does not have the ability to reach satisfactory and fair agreements.
- Knowledge of medical processes: A personal injury lawyer is fully informed about the medical procedures that must be carried out in order to counteract the bodily injury caused by the accident.
- Knowledge of negligence regulation and the like: A personal injury attorney rockford il handles a fairly broad knowledge of the legal specifications relating to negligence, civil liability, the distribution of blame and other legal factors involved in a personal injury case.
2) Parameters for the choice of the lawyer
The selection of an excellent legal professional specialized in personal injury cases must be attached to certain parameters. The parameters that will be mentioned below are not the result of an arbitrary selection process. On the contrary, these parameters are basic, dictated by logic and common sense, and are also recommended by any legal firm. It is a good idea to take paper and a pen and write down each of them.
- Location: A very important element, but strangely excluded from most of the articles and informative guides in this regard is the location of the candidate. No matter how good it is: if your potential representative does not come from the State where the accident took place, then it must be automatically discarded, because it will not have the license required by the law of each State.
- Specialization: If you need legal advice for a divorce, will you hire a lawyer specialized in cases of defective products? Evidently, no. Well the same applies to personal injury cases (and with a lot of things, really): try that the lawyer is dedicated exclusively to the resolution of cases like yours. A simple attorney general is not a good option.
- Reputation: It is true that reputation (such as fame) can be manufactured with morally detestable methods, so a lawyer with a wide reputation is not necessarily the most appropriate. However, a reputable lawyer is always preferable to a lawyer without a reputation. Additionally, you can corroborate the reputation of said lawyer: you may find references from your own community or from people of your deepest confidence, such as friends or family.
- Exercise time: A personal injury lawyer who does not have much time in practice is a lawyer who does not have the experience or knowledge necessary to ensure a victory in a personal injury case (especially if we consider how sensitive they are). Therefore, a condition sine qua non is that the candidate is a professional with enough years of legal practice.
- Record of conduct: Another essential parameter, but at the same time ignored and unnoticed, is the behavior record. Through a review of these files, you can see how the lawyer has behaved throughout his period of exercise; You can see if complaints or complaints have been filed against him; and you can also see if the lawyer has not been warned (license suspension, etc.). Behavior records can be found on the Internet; Most states have them uploaded to the network. At least in California, you can check this information in the State Bar: all you have to do is enter the lawyer’s number and you will see everything related to your behavior during your working years.
- Experience in courts: As we commented in the first part of this article, one of the virtues of a personal injury lawyer is having traveled a vast path through the courts. A lawyer with extensive experience in courts knows perfectly the functioning, the dynamics and the movement within them; He also knows the judges and prosecutors, so he can exercise more influence over them and, in that way, position the case in your favor.
- Case statistics: Last, but not least, a review of the results of all cases handled by the lawyer, that is, the statistics related to victories (successes) and defeats (failures). The ideal is that the professional possess very balanced statistics towards the victories, because it is very problematic a lawyer who has numerous successful cases but who has a multitude of unsuccessful cases. The balance to success is essential to choosing a good personal injury lawyer.
3) Personal references
When you have already recorded all the parameters required for the selection process of your lawyer, it is time to start questioning your relatives, friends, acquaintances, neighbors, among others, about good personal injury lawyers. This interrogation stage can be referred to as the search for personal references.
Naturally, personal references generate more confidence than reputation or fame in themselves. As we said earlier, reputation can be created artificially, while personal references can not. That is, there is no conflict of interest between a friend and you. There is no reason why your friend, your family member, etc., should lie to you about the lawyer he recommended. That is why lawyers who have multiple personal references to their credit are often the ones that make you feel more confident.
However, keep in mind that the possession of personal references is something that adds points. It is an advantage, a plus . But you can not and should not be guided solely by it. If a close friend recommends a lawyer, you should not hire that lawyer immediately. You have to analyze it properly and evaluate that it meets the requirements.
We have explained 3 stages of the process of investigating the candidates to be your personal injury lawyer, but they are not the only ones. In another article, we will talk about the other stages, as well as the rest of the guidelines that must be followed rigorously if you want to obtain the advice of a highly trained personal injury lawyer.