“You Have a Great Case!”

As a lawyer who does a lot of potential client interviews, in person and over the phone, I am very careful NOT to say a phrase I know the client wants to hear. The phrase is,”You have a great case!” I believe it is so important to never give potential clients unrealistic expectations before I even accept the case. Has my unwillingness to not over compliment a potential client’s case cost me any clients? Honestly, none that I know of. Could it happen? Yes, and I don’t care. The client is in my office or on my phone for my honest opinion and I’m going to give it to them. Usually, they really appreciate it.

I heard it said one time that from a lawyer’s perspective, a new case that comes into the office is the BEST the day the client first walks in the door. There are rare exceptions, but I have found this to be true. Sometimes, by no fault of the client, he or she failes to mention important information that is critical to the success or failure of the case. If I told every client “You have a great case” I’d spend the rest of my work relationship with the client explaining “Well, when I said that I didn’t know, blah, blah, blah.” The lawyer’s credibility begins to spiral downward.

When you are interviewing a lawyer to take your case and he or she says, “You have a great case,” RUN!! Lawyers, tell your clients you don’t know how strong a case they have until you have obtained (and read) the pertinent documents, interviewed the witnesses and researched the law. If you’ll do that, you will save yourself some tough conversations later. Don’t be afraid to say one of the top two phrases a lawyer hates to say…”I don’t know.”

By the way, the other phrase is, “I don’t practice in that area.”  More on that one later…

Protect Yourself Against Uninsured Motorists

People driving without auto insurance is increasingly becoming a problem, especially in these tough economic times. Often times, insurance premium payments are the first to go when things get tight. To protect yourself against getting stuck with medical bills for injuries that you suffer at the hands of an uninsured motorist it is IMPERATIVE that you have UNINSURED MOTORIST COVERAGE, or “UM” for short. If you have UM and are injured by an insured motorist, your UM coverage will take the place of what the person that hurt you lacked. Also, if you were severely injured and your claim exceeds the insurance policy limits of the person that hurt you, your UM will be available ON TOP of the other insurance, thus giving you more insurance to pay your claim. For more explanation go here.

UM is cheap considering its benefits. If you don’t have it, call your agent and GET IT so that you don’t wind up like this person.

OK House passes bill on contingency fee cap

Today the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill that would send the question of whether attorney’s contingency fee caps should be lowered to the vote of the people. A contingency fee is a fee that is collected only if the attorney’s client obtains a settlement or jury verdict, i.e. the attorney fee is contingent on the client recovering money. If there is no recovery there is no fee. The contingency fee is beneficial to people who do not have enough money to pay an attorney up front for legal work. An attorney who accepts a contingency fee arrangement puts in hours of work and pays case expenses without any guarantee of recovery. The attorney invests his time and money in the hopes of obtaining a recovery. Currently, Oklahoma law dictates that an attorney’s fee shall not be more than 50% of the recovery. The current proposed legislation seeks to limit an attorney’s contingency fee to 33% on the first million recovered and 20% on higher awards. Usually, cases that are worth over a million dollars are the kinds where a life has been lost or even worse, a person is living with a severe lifelong disability that was cause by the negligence of another. I often tell my clients, “The cool thing about the contingency fee agreement is that you and I have the same incentive, to get the highest possible settlement as quickly as possible.” I’m wondering how the proposed legislation would affect my statement? When my attorney fee is dependent on the amount of recovery, would my statement be true? I would have to make the moral and ethical decision to prosecute my client’s case with every intention to maximize my client’s recovery even to my detriment, but would hate to even have to consider the negative impact on my fee if I get my client a more successful result.

Most attorneys charge 33% for a routine car accident case. When the cases get more complicated such as in the area of medical malpractice, the hours and expenses go up drastically. Medical Malpractice cases require medical experts who do not come cheap. Remember, the attorney is paying all expenses before they see a dime in fees. The attorney is taking all the risk. Therefore, a higher contingency fee is justified in medical malpractice cases, usually 45% and rarely 50%. The contingency fee arrangement allows a person to hire a legal professional to take on a large insurance company who insures a large entity. How would that person fare without the professional? The Defendant’s insurer has hired a professional as well. The difference is that the Defendant’s attorney is getting paid hourly, usually at the rate of $225 to $250 an hour. Have you ever known a person who works hourly to want to get the job over quickly? No. The Defense attorneys are getting paid handsomely as they go. They have every incentive to churn litigation to earn more fees. Truth be told, Defense attorneys don’t want tort reform either. Ask one.

The current proposed legislation is really nothing more than a political ploy. The real legislation that most legislators want passed includes caps on damages, elimination of joint and several liability and other laws that they sell as preventing frivolous lawsuits when there are already those type of laws in place! No, the ploy is to throw out legislation that the attorneys who represent injured people hate which begins to make the other legislation mentioned look like the least of the evils and worth agreeing to. Nice ploy, but hopefully the people of Oklahoma will see the proposed legislation for what it is. 

Our civil justice system is NOT broken. Challenge a legislator to show you run away verdicts in Oklahoma. Challenge a legislator to show you examples of frivolous lawsuits that abused the system and were not thrown out by our Courts. The evidence is NOT THERE. Challenge the medical communities’ insurer to show you that their losses are due to frivolous lawsuits, not bad medicine and bad investments in declining markets. Its…about…money.

Read the story in the Journal Record about the proposed legislation here

Stay tuned……

Attorney Disbarred

You may have read recently about a well known Oklahoma City attorney who got disbarred. The Supreme Court Order lists allegations ranging from dishonesty to judges to sexual favors in exchange for payment of attorney fees. As in almost any profession, there are bad apples. It is a shame that the entire profession tends to suffer because some members don’t follow the rules and choose to throw morality out the window.

This recent news story restates the obvious. When you are looking for an attorney, it is so important who you choose. Here at Action Law Center, you already know that we represent people who have been injured by the fault of another. What you may not know or realize is that we have many referral sources to assist our clients in matters involving criminal law, workers compensation, family law, social security disability and others. You can rest assured that a referral from Action Law Center will be to a competent, moral attorney that will not end up on the front page of the paper.

Keep Action Law Center in mind for ALL your legal needs.

New Insurance Company Ploy

I am hearing more and more about a new ploy that insurance companies are using to get injured people to settle their claims quickly. Shortly after the injured person’s car accident, the insurance adjuster is knocking on the injured person’s door with a voucher of some sort worth approximately $1000-$2000 for future medical treatment. A day or two later, the injured person heads to the doctor because they are hurting worse than they thought. THEN, they find out that it is sure going to cost more than the $1000-$2000 they have been given to get the proper treatment. The problem is THEY HAVE ALREADY SETTLED THEIR CLAIM and can not get any more money!! Bad, bad, bad. 

If you know of anyone who is in a car accident that was not their fault warn them about this new ploy and have them call me. I will talk to them for no charge whatsoever and give them good advice.

In the Oklahoma City area call 232-2281 or toll free 1-866-499-2281. Also, feel free to email me at eric@actionlawokc.com.

 

Why this Blog??

Welcome to the Action Law Center blog. This blog will be used to provide useful information to my current, former and potential clients. The blog entries will contain legal information, opinions, updates and anything else worth talking about pertaining to personal injury law.

I welcome your comments and suggestions. I would love to hear from you.