BILLBOARDS ARE BS.
Have you ever seen a billboard along a highway advertising the services of an attorney? Of course, you have. They are everywhere.
How about $10 million dollars a year in advertising costs alone for just one of these personal injury mills?
Estimates are that $2.4 billion dollars is currently spent on advertising legal services on television, radio, print ads, or billboards.
How can the lawyer’s face you see along the roadway have time to represent you? The answer is, that they cannot. You may never know who is actually handling your case at any given point in time. Most of the time you will deal with someone other than an attorney. Law firm mega advertisers are often staffed by as many as 500 employees, with only about 5% of the staff being attorneys.
If you don’t know who is actually handling your case, you have no idea of their qualifications or reputation. Advertisers will say virtually anything to try and get your business. To the operators of a personal injury mill it’s all about quantity and not quality.
How Can You Find Out if Your Attorney is Any Good if You Never Get to Meet Them in Person?
First and most importantly, if you cannot meet the lawyer who will represent you in person, hire someone else.
If you do manage to get the name of the lawyer who is handling your case, do a background check before you sign any paperwork. The State Bar of California website has a public record of all licensed attorneys in California with their State Bar Number, the date they were admitted to practice law in California, whether their license is active or suspended, and whether there has ever been discipline taken against that attorney.
Do a business record check through the Secretary of State website. You may be surprised by what you find. You can find out if the firm has any liens against it, like whether it owes money to a bank. That can help you find out whether the firm is at risk of being able to fund your case. Remember with operating costs of at least a million dollars a month, there is plenty of reason to worry if the mega mill has enough cash flow at any given point in time to effectively handle your case.
Look up the attorney’s name or the name of the law firm in the county where your injury case happened using the Superior Court website. You can see prior cases the attorney or law firm has handled. You can access filed documents even filed settlement information. You can even see if the attorney or law firm you are thinking of hiring has ever been named as a defendant in a civil or criminal case. Every County uses the same format. Search using the name of the County and Online Case Access. You may have to create an account, but there is no fee. Make sure that the site you are using is .gov. In Placer County for example the website here.
Fees Lawyers Charge to Handle a Personal Injury Case are Negotiable
Before you sign on the dotted line, make sure you understand who is advancing the costs to prosecute your case.
Make sure you know the percentage of how much money you recover is going to the lawyer. Make sure you know if that percentage changes if you have to go to trial and how any money from a verdict or settlement will be split between you and the lawyer.
Make sure you know how the attorney’s costs are taken out of your money.
Make sure you know how your medical bills and health insurance claims will affect any money left in your pocket after paying attorney fees and costs.
When You Retain the Law Offices of Barry Zimmerman, You Get Barry Zimmerman as Your Attorney
Few lawyers have represented victims of personal injury accidents longer than I have. I have been a lawyer for nearly 40 years. I have been licensed to practice law in the State of California since 1987.
- I have been rated by my peers as a California Super Lawyer for over 20 years.
- You can check out my Super Lawyers profile.
- You can check out my California State Bar Profile.
- You can check out my rating on Avvo which reviews lawyers and helps people make informed decisions.