The Romance Between You and Your Lawyer
I'm going to talk about the topic of how to know when the romance is over. Is the romance between you and your lawyer over? Or can it be repaired? I don't mean an actual real romance. That's actually unethical. Lawyers are not supposed to have those sorts of relationships with their current clients or prospective clients.
What I'm talking about is, many injury lawyers will get you on the phone, promise you a million dollars. They will tell you, you have the greatest case in the world, and then after they sign up the case they're a ghost. No one at their office wants to talk to you, nobody calls you back, the lawyer never talks to you again. Or maybe you like the look of somebody who's on TV and they look like they're handsome and they're wearing a nice suit or they look like they're in shape and they look real professional and so you call them.
But you never really get to talk to them. You talk to their assistant and then throughout the case, it's just talking to random people at the office who you don't know. You never really get to talk to the lawyer. Now why does that happen? There's a good reason for it, lawyers are very busy. But I will be honest with you. I have a bias against lawyers who just do injury law for the business end of it. There's videos on my website and an explanation on my website why I do it and how I got into it. It involves a pretty serious injury to my dad.
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A Hands-Off Lawyer
So the idea of a hands-off lawyer, you see a lawyer on TV, but then you never talk to the guy. He's never at the office, he doesn't go to court. Is he really your lawyer? Or is he just like an ad man and he's sending it off to another lawyer who you don't know from? It's unfortunately very common and very typical. But that's why in my office, I represent people, and I'm the main lawyer in my office. I touch every case, I review every case, I open every case, and then obviously I have staff help me work on the cases, and I settle the cases.
I'm personally involved in every case. Sometimes you won't get to talk to me. I've actually had a few clients who never got to talk to me, who talk to my staff, sign up and then the case goes great, within a year they've got their money. I've had clients call me and say "hey, I never got to talk to you, I want to talk to you", well then i call him back. Seems like the decent thing to do.
So what should you do if you feel like it was a beautiful romance before you signed up with a lawyer and then after that they don't want to talk to you? They're rude to you, they don't call you back, things like that.
Switching Lawyers
Well the first thing I tell people is, you can switch lawyers if you want to. You're allowed to do that but there are delicate times in a personal injury case where switching lawyers may not be the best. The other thing is, if it's literally just one bad conversation or you're just having a bad day and the lawyer's having a bad day and you guys bump heads a little bit. That's not the kind of thing where I'd like to see you switch lawyers.
I tell people all the time and in fact I probably make 15 or 20 calls a year where people call me asking me if I'll take over their case. And I ask them what the problem is with their current lawyer, and they'll tell me "oh well he was he yelled at me". I'm going to be honest with you, I always ask permission from the client "hey let me call them to let them know there's a problem, let's try and smooth it out". I would say 80 to 85 percent of the time I call the lawyer, they call the client, they smooth things over and everything's great.
Your Lawyer Won't Address Your Concerns
I don't get a case out of it and I don't make money off it, but it just seems like the decent thing to do. If it's the best thing for you to stay with your current lawyer, then that's what I want to happen for you.
Now there are situations where I'll call a lawyer two to three times and say "your client keeps calling me, please call your client and please settle them down, I don't want to take the case". If the lawyer won't call me back and won't call the client back and there's no secretary calling me back nobody calls anybody back after several phone calls. Or if it's a situation where the lawyer was really aggressive with the client and the client has concerns that the lawyer just won't address, then I can understand why a client might want to switch lawyers.
It Is Your Decision
Under those circumstances, I think you know you might want to take it more seriously. My business isn't really based on taking cases over from other lawyers. And sometimes a lawyer will just withdraw from a case. But if you have a case and you're having a problem with your lawyer, let me see if I can try and smooth it over for you.
If your lawyer doesn't want the case anymore and you don't want to work with that lawyer anymore, it's your decision. Maybe that's something we can talk about. If you need a free consultation you can always call me at 312 500 4500 on night or day free call and free consultation.
