7 Ways To Find The Right Attorney For Your Personal Injury

By Staff Reporter Feb 12, 2021 02:12 PM EST

In every professional field, there are those who provide exceptional service and those who do barely enough to meet their clients' expectations. This is also true of the legal field, which is why it's important to take your time in choosing a lawyer to handle your injury claim. Whether your injuries resulted from an auto accident, medical malpractice, or defective product, it's important to work with the attorney that gives you the best chances for a favorable outcome. This guide can help you find the right lawyer to represent you.

Start Asking Around For Referrals

Word of mouth is one of the best ways to find out about the top attorneys in your area, so one of your first moves is to talk to your friends, family, and co-workers about hiring a Tampa personal injury attorney. While you'll want to avoid discussing the details of your case, you can share the fact that you're looking for a lawyer. If the people you know have had a reason to work with an injury lawyer, they will tell you about their experience. You'll find out whether they had positive or negative experiences, which will help you determine if you want to hire those attorneys to handle your case. This is also a good way to find out which lawyers in your area have bad reputations so you can avoid wasting time with them.

Look For Specialized Experience

Many online resources will tell you to look for an attorney with experience, which most people take to mean that they should avoid hiring an attorney who has just finished law school. While that is good advice, you should also narrow your search to those attorneys with the specialized experience you need. For example, an attorney with 30 years handling medical malpractice cases won't have the practical experience necessary to handle your defective product claim. In this situation, the attorney may not know how to determine which party was negligent in allowing the defective product to be sold to you or how your injuries were caused by the defect. You can obtain a much better outcome in your claim when you consult a lawyer with specific experience in handling defective product claims.

Check Online Reviews and Testimonials

After you have a list of potential injury attorneys to consider, you'll want to narrow down your choices. A good way to do this is to search for the attorneys online and visit sites that allow clients to leave reviews. You can start by checking each lawyer's official website, but you'll usually only see positive testimonials on the individual sites. Alternatively, you'll get a more accurate representation of client experiences by checking the pages for each attorney on sites like the Better Business Bureau, Google, and Facebook. You can also check the comments left by users on each attorney's Twitter feed. While every lawyer will have a small percentage of negative reviews, a large number of poor reviews suggests that particular attorney may not meet client expectations.

Check With Your State's Bar Association

By now, your list should be a little shorter, but you'll still need to narrow down your choices for the Tampa personal injury attorney you'll hire. You can do this by visiting the bar association website for your state. You can see what other lawyers have to say about the attorney's you're considering consulting. Additionally, you can contact the association directly through the site. This will give you a way to found out if the attorney's you're considering have ever been disciplined for unethical behavior. You can also ask if the attorneys on your list have ever been sued for legal malpractice. The site will also help you verify that the attorneys on your list are still licensed to practice law.

Pay Attention to the Attorney's Office

Once you have narrowed your choices down to two or three candidates, you can begin scheduling initial consultations. The initial consultation is your first meeting with an attorney and, as such, it will be free of charge. This gives you the opportunity to evaluate the attorney as well as giving the lawyer a chance to examine your case and provide you with an assessment of its value. When you arrive, you'll probably spend a few minutes in the waiting room until the attorney is ready to meet with you. Use this time wisely by observing the office's staff. If they seem rushed or frazzled, this can be a sign that the attorney is taking on more than they can handle. In that situation, your case is unlikely to get the attention it deserves.

Assess the Quality of the Attorney

During your interview with each attorney, you should have a list of questions to ask. These questions should involve determining the quality of the attorney. You can ask how many cases they typically handle in a year and, of those cases, how many resulted in courtroom wins. You should also ask how often the attorney settles out of court. While a good negotiator will settle a fair amount of cases, someone who settles most of his cases suggests a fear of going to court. Alternatively, a lawyer who rarely settles suggests that they may pass up good settlement offers.

Trust Your Feelings

As you ask the attorney about their experiences, pay attention to how you feel as they talk to you. This is someone with whom you'll be working closely, so you should feel comfortable sharing personal and sensitive information. If the attorney seems nervous talking to you, imagine how they must seem to a judge or jury. Additionally, a lawyer who just gives you a bad feeling should be avoided. People's instincts are often right, and you won't want to put your future in the hands of someone who makes you feel uncomfortable. Instead, look for someone you do like.

While looking for the right attorney to handle your case can take some effort, you'll be glad you took your time in choosing a lawyer. The attorney you hire can help you obtain a better settlement offer that will be sufficient to cover your damages. If the insurance company won't negotiate, your lawyer will be prepared to take the claim to court. In either situation, you'll have the top quality professional help you need to arrive at a fair outcome in your case.