Articles Posted in Hiring a Lawyer

Lawyers who work on personal injury and wrongful death cases in Tennessee and other states often work on a contingent fee.  These lawyers also often include a provision in the fee agreement with a client that addresses the subject of litigation expenses.  This post addresses the topic of litigation expenses, and will educate potential personal injury and wrongful death clients what types of litigation expenses they will be asked to pay.

At the outset it is important to remember that the fee agreement with the lawyer controls the amount and basis of the attorney fee and will address the subject of litigation expenses.  The vast majority of personal injury and wrongful death lawyers advance all litigation expenses and expect that the litigation expenses will be repaid at the end of the case if the case is successful.  Some lawyers advance litigation expenses and expect to be repaid the expenses whether or not the case is successful.  Other lawyers do not advance the expenses of litigation or will agree to fund only a certain amount of litigation expenses.

Litigation expenses often include the following types of expenditures:

The litigation of certain types of personal injury and wrongful death cases, particularly medical malpractice, products liability, and tractor-truck cases, can be very expensive. Most Tennessee personal injury and Tennessee wrongful death lawyers are willing to work on a contingent fee, but there must be money available to finance the other expenses of litigation (court reporters, expert witnesses, demonstrative aids and exhibits, etc,)

A personal injury lawyer who accepts those cases for consumers must have the financial ability to advance money for those expenses because most consumers are unable to do so. Some lawyers are very under-capitalized, i.e., they lack the ability to adequately finance a case to completion. The lack of financial resources can affect the outcome of the case, because the lack of financial resources can impact the quality of expert witnesses the lawyer employs to assist in the case, the number of expert witnesses, the number of depositions that are taken (court reporters are paid to transcribe depositions, and they are expensive), the quality of demonstrative exhibits at trial, etc.  

So how does a consumer evaluate this factor? It is very difficult. Most lawyers will not turn over their balance sheets to prove to you that they have the financial resources to finance the case. One way a client can gain information about this issue is by determining if the lawyer is asking the client to borrow money or pay interest on the money the lawyer borrows to finance case expenses. This indicates one of two things: either the lawyer lacks the ability to finance the case, or the lawyer has the ability to do so but is shifting the cost of financing case expenses to the client (which increases the total cost of hiring that lawyer and increases the lawyer’s profit).

The Law Offices of John Day, P.C. recommends that you never hire a lawyer, much less a personal injury lawyer, that does not have insurance to protect you in case the lawyer makes a mistake that causes you harm.

There is no law that requires that a Tennessee personal injury lawyer (or any other type of lawyer in Tennessee) have malpractice insurance coverage.  Some lawyers try to save money and not purchase insurance that would  protect their clients from loss in the event of a lawyer error.

This is plain stupid and puts you as a client at risk.  Lawyers, like everyone else, can make mistakes. Most of those mistakes can be corrected without causing harm to a client, but it is possible that an error cannot be corrected and will result in harm to a client.  A responsible lawyer knows that such errors can occur and protects a client from financial loss through the purchase of malpractice insurance. 

The lawyer you hire in personal injury and wrongful death litigation – or in any legal matter – makes a difference.  The simple fact of the matter is not every lawyer has the experience, ability and knowledge to handle a complex case, or even a simple case for that matter.  Not every lawyer has the financial wherewithal to fund contingency fee cases.  And, if a lawyer lacks the experience, ability, knowledge or financial ability to handle your case,  the value of your case and, indeed, the ability to win it at all, can be impacted.

So how do you know who to hire as your lawyer in a personal injury or wrongful death case?  The Law Offices of John Day, P.C. recommends that you read our Legal Guide titled "Understanding How to Hire a Lawyer in a Personal Injury or Wrongful Death Case" to understand what factors you should consider in this important decision.

You need to be warned this is Legal Guide is not short – it will require ten or fifteen minutes to read it.  But the decision you make on which lawyer is an important one, and we suggest that you read it completely.  We are confident that you will find it helpful in determining who will be your legal advocate.

In virtually every type of Tennessee personal injury case a lawyer will be required to order medical records concerning the treatment that the received in the incident giving rise to the injuries.  The lawyer is charged for every page of every record from every health care provider. At the Law Offices of John Day, P.C. we have spent over $1000 to order medical records for a single client.

Why do lawyers have to pay for records?  The health care industry got a special law passed that permits each health care provider to charge a minimum fee for the first five pages of records ($20), 50 cents for each additional page plus the cost of mailing the records.  An additional $20.00 is charged when the lawyer asks the provider to certify the records as “business records” under the law.

The charges are clearly unreasonable, especially in light of the fact that many records are now electronic and it is much easier to produce medical records.  However, the health care lobby is very strong and thus the charges will undoubtedly continue.

Twice in the last couple of weeks I have had to turn away potential Tennessee personal injury clients because they called me too late.

People do not contact a personal injury attorney promptly after an accident for several different reasons.  Some think that the injury they have is minor or temporary.  Others believe the insurance adjuster when he or she says that they will be fair.  Still others think that they can avoid an expense of a lawyer by taking care of their claim by themselves.

Candidly, there are some personal injury cases where you will not benefit from the help of a lawyer.  At our firm, we tell many people every year that we do not think that they would benefit from our ongoing assistance and that they would be better served handling the matter on their own.   

The preparation and trial of a personal injury case requires the expenditure of time and money. Typically, personal injury lawyers work on a contingent fee, meaning that they do not get paid for their work unless they are successful. 

The expenditure of money for case expenses is handled differently by different lawyers. Some lawyers make the client pay for medical records and deposition costs as they are incurred.  This is relatively rare, but occurs.   They do this because (a) they lack the money to advance the expenses for the client and / or (b) they lack confidence in the likelihood of success of the case and do not want to put their own money at risk.  You should make every effort to find a lawyer to take your case who will not charge you for these expenses as they are incurred.

Other lawyers pay all of the case expenses as they are incurred and then deduct those expenses from the monetary recovery obtained in the case.  In the event that the case is unsuccessful, these lawyers will either ask the client to re-pay the expenses or will waive expense reimbursement.

This is Part 5 of a 6-part series on what you look for in  Tennessee personal injury or wrongful death lawyer.  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 of the series discuss twelve factors we believe that you should consider when making this important decision.

13. What is the size of the lawyer’s caseload?

Answer: Lawyers maintain different numbers of cases, and their ability to do so is dependent on several factors. First, the type of case is a very relevant. One lawyer can able do very competent, timely work on 75 or 100 worker’s compensation cases at one time if he or she has well-trained support staff. One lawyer would have a very difficult time working doing very competent, timely work on ten medical malpractices cases on behalf of the patient at one time, even if he or she has well-trained support staff.

Here are the final factor we think you should consider when you are trying to decide who to hire for your Tennessee personal injury or wrongful death attorney.  Links to the other factors appear at the bottom of this post.

16. What about a lawyer who suggests that they have a special relationship with the judge and that  you should hire them because they have such a relationship?

Answer: Lawyers who say such things are scumbags. 99.9% of judges would never allow their personal feelings for a lawyer to directly affect the outcome of the case. To do so would be unethical, and 99.9% of judges would never consider acting in such a fashion.

This six-post series discusses the factors you should consider in determining who you should hire as your personal injury or wrongful death lawyer.

Part 1, 2 and 3 identified nine factors.  Here are three more:

10. Understand how the lawyer charges for time and expenses.