Good Personal Injury Attorneys Do Not Contact You First
Posted by rozeklawoffice on May 5, 2010 under Bicycle Accidents, Car Accidents, Motorcycle Accidents, Pedestrian Accidents, Personal Injury Cases, Truck Accidents | 
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In our 14 years of practicing law, we have never seen an individual who is prepared for an accident. No one anticipates being unable to work. Having their car banged up. Suffering pain that will not go away. We have had clients come into our office after an accident and seem pain-free. Then their condition worsens and they need surgery. We have also had clients come in after an accident in tremendous pain. Wearing the typical padded collars to ease whiplash discomfort, having trouble sitting, or having trouble standing. We have accepted these injuries cases and watched as clients heal quickly and are shortly back to their old self. The point I am making is that you never know if an accident will cause immediate injury, slow on-set injury, injury that will heal, or injury that will get worse and possible pain that will never go away. Even doctors do not really know if someone will heal and be back to how they were before the accident.
So, what should you do?
Unfortunately, in Wisconsin, and most predominately the City of Milwaukee, you do not have to do a thing. Attorneys, intermediaries, legal and medical coordinators, insurance agents and representatives of doctors offices will be flying to you. Your telephone may right. Someone may tell you that the hospital has assigned you a doctor or a lawyer. You Many find a business card in your door or mailbox. You may notice an attorney is now “following” you on twitter.Your mailbox is filled with promotional literature on personal injury attorney firms!
There are other variations of this scene and its important to know it is all a scam. “Runners” sometimes drive around with police scanners in their car. You may have an accident, and they appear asking if they can drive you to a doctor or lawyer. I have heard of tow truck drivers or body shops that also do this. There are reports of runners walking hospital hallways and entering rooms or striking up conversation in hospital waiting rooms, all while passing out their business cards. Runners may call themselves “Legal Referral Service” or “Medical Referral Service” or something similar. Don’t be fooled.
There are stories of people who have been injured and riding in the ambulance when the ambulance attendant passes them a cell phone to speak with an attorney. Others have reported that the tow truck drivers have dropped off their car at the auto repair shop and then offered to drive the injured person to a lawyer’s office.
The following are things that you should know if you have or are ever in an accident.
Hospitals do not assign anyone an accident or injury lawyer. A patients file including phone number and other contact information are kept confidential and never distributed without your permission. If the hospital refers you to a doctor other than your family doctor, they usually will give you a list of doctors with several names to chose from, which is ok.
The people running around with business cards, calling you, following yo9u on twitter, or offering to drive you to a doctor or lawyer (called “runners”) are not doing so out of pure kindness. They are getting paid. In the most outrageous cases, lawyers may offer you money directly. This is illegal. These are the kind of professionals that give all lawyers and doctors a bad rap. You should not want an attorney or doctor that gets patients this way. Any lawyer or doctor that would pay cash for a case can not be any good. The best lawyers act legally and ethically. They are the ones that do not call you first.
Insurance companies know who the dishonest lawyers are. They have departments staffed by retires law enforcement agents whose only job is to discover fraud. Even if you have a legitimate injury and case, if your lawyer is known to be dishonest, you may be investigated and watched.
So, how should you find an ethical personal injury attorney?
First and Foremost, you should be looking for an attorney that is not looking for you! Toss all the mail solicitations, block attorney “followers” on twitter, politely take business card from an y runner or person lingering in the medical facility and then throw them away. You have 3 options left: turn on TV and listen to 30 second attorney commercial (won’t learn much about the firm beyond “one call that’s all” or “don’t drop the ball, just call” ); pull out the yellow pages (not much here either since there is limited space and again filled with slogans and jargon; go to your computer and search for your type of accident or injury (finally, you will be getting solid facts, listings of experience and even free information). We would recommend searching for your type of accident using the location in your search terms (ex: Wisconsin Bicycle Accident Attorney) or your type of injury using your location in your search terms (ex: Wisconsin Brain Injury Attorney).
Once at the website, we recommend spending some time, clicking around the site to find useful information that the firm provides. Are there any free guides that you can order? Are there any injury tools available such as a migraine diary? Are there any symptom checklists that you can print off for your use? Does the site have a blog that you can go to to find more information on your injury?
Once you have read over the information from various sites, contact the attorney using the contact method that you feel most comfortable. The firm should have on their website multiple contact options that you can choose from (i.e. instant chat, case evaluation form, email address, phone number, etc.).
Once you have contacted the attorney, ask him/her questions that help you determine who will actually be handling your case from start to finish, what is their experience with the particular injury you have sustain, who are their experts on these injuries, if the case does not settle, are they prepared to go to trial? (Very important note: If the attorney says he can get you a “quick” settlement, politely finish the conversation and move on to the next attorney. Quick settlement discussion at the onset of your case can only mean less compensation for you the injured individual).
Good luck in your pursuit for justice and your road to recovery, both financially and medically. If you would like to speak with an experienced Wisconsin Personal Injury Attorney, please do not hesitate to click on the link, view the website, and contact Attorney Randy Rozek.
