Personal Injury Attorney - The Components to Look For When Hiring

You will probably only get one shot at recovering damages from an incident where someone's negligence caused you pain and suffering. The end result may be a settlement, a judgment, or a door slammed in your face. To improve your chances, you'll need to hire a personal injury attorney who knows what they are doing. Now, you might say, "Wouldn't every lawyer know what they are doing?" But there is a vast range of skills that fall under the umbrella of "competency." If you want someone who falls closer to the high end of that scale, here are some of the things you should look for when considering whom to hire.

Education

Any personal injury attorney is going to have a history of considerable education. Three years of law school is a requirement for licensure. They must also pass the state bar exam, which is no easy test to pass. At first glance, this would seem to put all lawyers on roughly the same level. While this is true to some extent, it's also worth taking a lawyer's choice of school into account. They don't need to be a graduate of Harvard, but you might consider running their school's name through a web search just to see what kind of reputation the institution has.

Experience

This is a big one. A personal injury attorney can have attended the best law school in the country, but if this is one of their first cases, you probably want to find someone else. Every lawyer has to start somewhere, but you might as well let it be somewhere else. You aren't going to find too much inexperienced lawyers running their own practices, but a larger law firm may hand a smaller case to someone who needs to log some billable hours as they get their feet underneath them. Don't let your case be someone's training ground.

Contingency

If you're already hurting from lost wages and extravagant medical bills, the last thing you need is a personal injury attorney who is going to put you in an even worse financial predicament. Fortunately, most lawyers in this field are willing to work on a contingency basis. This means, simply, that they don't get paid until the judgment or settlement has arrived. They will then take their fee as a percentage of that sum. You never have to pay out of pocket, meaning it is a win-win situation for both parties. While there are good lawyers out there who work on other fee structures, you'll probably prefer working with someone who won't charge you up front.