When an injured party seeks out a personal injury attorney, most of the time, it is the very first time they have ever talked to one. People get hurt every day, but not everyone seeks to pursue a lawsuit over their injuries. When they are hurt bad enough, sometimes they can’t afford to pay for their own medical bills and thus they seek legal representation. Like when doing anything for the first time, you want as much information as possible on the process. This is particularly true when it comes to picking the right personal injury attorney for you. So instead of just pouring over all the information Google can offer, why not just ask these questions to your potential personal injury attorney?
What Sort of Cases do You Specialize in?
Personal injury is a very broad area of the law and many personal injury lawyers cover a lot of different areas. It can range from everything from worker’s compensation to dog bites. However, most personal injury lawyers will find that they specialize in one area more than another, or at least get a majority of their cases for one sort of area of personal injury law. What is it? Is it similar to your issue? You probably might not want a personal injury attorney who primarily handles commercial trucking accidents to handle your premises liability case. However, if you were in a car crash then a personal injury lawyer that handles commercial trucking accidents wouldn’t be such a bad choice even if your accident didn’t involve a commercial truck as the areas of the law are still similar.
How Many Cases Do You Have?
While your personal injury attorney can’t discuss their specific cases with you, that doesn’t mean they can’t tell you about their case load. Do they have about ten different cases about going to trial as a solo practice? Then they might not have time to take on yours or at least give it the dedication it deserves. However, if they have multiple attorneys working for a practice, then larger case loads are not such a big deal. By asking how many cases they have and how many lawyers work for a practice, you can gauge how much time they have for you.
How Are Expenses Charged?
It should never be considered tawdry to talk about legal expenses. You may be paying an attorney to try their best to win a case, but your own funds are not infinite. Will you need to pay the legal costs pertaining to the lawsuit such as filing fees upfront? Will you have to pay any fees if the lawsuit is not successful? Are they the type of “if we don’t win, you don’t pay” sort of lawyer? While shopping around for the lowest costing lawyer is likely going to result in a lower quality lawyer, you should at least know how much a lawyer you like will cost you.
Will They Take Your Wishes Into Consideration?
Some lawyers are real sharks. They smell blood in the water and they continue their attack without any regard to anything else. While this is good for some, maybe you don’t want a shark. Sure, you could press some loophole and get a lot more money out of the person that injured you, but maybe you don’t want that. You might just want your medical bills covered. It is important to get a lawyer’s word upfront that they will honor your wishes if you ask them not to press something.
These are the key questions to ask any Wisconsin personal injury attorney if you want to get a good feel on if they are the right lawyer for you. However, while you should ask questions, a good attorney will offer up a lot of information before you can even ask about it. If you want to know if we are the right personal injury lawyer for you in the Oshkosh area, contact us today.
