Choosing a personal injury lawyer is one of the most important decisions you will ever have to make. Just picking a lawyer from a television ad is not good enough. You need to make sure that you can get along with your Jacksonville personal injury lawyer. The best way to do that is to schedule a face-to-face interview or consultation. During the interview, you want to ask a lot of questions.
About the Initial Consultation
The initial consultation or interview is an excellent time to check out the personality and the strategy of a particular Jacksonville personal injury lawyer. Although many lawyers or law firms will offer free initial consultations, not all lawyers do. Make sure you know before you arrive whether you have to pay a fee. Lawyers who charge for an initial consultation are not necessarily any better than those who don’t.
Things you want to bring to the initial consultation:
- A list of questions
- Medical records pertaining to your case
- Notes about your particular accident
- Police reports of your accident (if applicable, such as in auto accidents)
- Any photos taken at the accident scene or of your injuries
- Contact information of any witnesses to your accident who will testify for you.
Background Check
It’s good to do some background checks on all of your personal injury lawyer candidates. You can find this information on a law firm or the lawyer’s own website. Things to look for include:
What role the lawyer has at the firm
What school or schools he or she graduated from
How long has he or she been a lawyer
You can also contact the Florida State Bar Association’s website through their Contact Us page. In this way you can double check that a lawyer is legally able to work in Florida. Unfortunately, there are people who pretend to be lawyers or who give legal advice for a price. You want to avoid these people. Only work with a lawyer who has a current license to practice in Florida.
Questions to Ask
You will have a lot of questions for your potential lawyer. Never work with a lawyer who belittles your questions or who ignores your concerns. The lawyer should give answers in easy to understand language. If your first language isn’t English, many lawyers have Spanish-speaking staff workers. Ask to see if you can bring an interpreter with you or if the firm can provide one for your consultation. It never hurts to ask.
Other questions to ask include:
- How much experience do you have at personal injury law?
- Have you ever seen or heard of a case like mine?
- Will this go to court or can it be settled out of court?
- Are there any other legal actions you can take other than a lawsuit?
- If this does go to court, will you represent me in court? (Never assume that all lawyers are comfortable in a courtroom!)
- Will you be the lawyer handling my case? (This is good to ask if the lawyer is in a firm with lots of attorneys.)
- If I want to accept a settlement, will you let me? (Some lawyers will argue that they should be the ones to accept any settlements.)
- How will you approach this case?
- Do I need to do anything else?
- How is your fee structure set up?
- When is payment due?
- Is payment due all at once or can it be paid off in installments?