How To Find The Right Personal Injury Lawyer

When you're harmed by someone else's careless or intentional conduct, a lawyer can help you settle any personal injury claim you decide to make, and will prepare your best personal injury lawsuit if you need to take things to court. But you don't want to hire just any lawyer. So, how do you get started finding the right lawyer for you and your case, and what are some things you should be considering along the way? Let's answer those questions, plus a few more.

Do I Really Need a Personal Injury Lawyer?

First things first. There are all kinds of personal injury cases, from car accidents resulting in bumps and bruises, to medical errors with catastrophic consequences. There are also all kinds of injury claimants, from go-getters and born bargainers to those who shy away from confrontation. So, do you really need a lawyer? It depends.

It's possible to handle an injury claim on your own, without a lawyer's help, but it's not the kind of decision you want to make lightly. For starters, it might help to consider two key questions:

• How much is at stake in your injury case? If your injuries are serious, and your recovery is likely to take a while, you probably want to think twice about trying to handle your case on your own. Hiring a lawyer is the best way to make sure all your losses are fully compensated.
• How confident are you that you can get the best result? If you're comfortable standing up for yourself throughout the injury claim process, it might make sense to try going it alone, at least at the outset. But if squaring off against the insurance company (or a lawyer) sounds intimidating, handing things off to a lawyer is probably the right move.

Learn more about deciding when to handle your own personal injury claim.

What Does a Personal Injury Lawyer Do?

Handing an injury claim off to a lawyer means having an experienced legal professional handle every aspect and angle of the case, all with an eye towards getting the best result. That includes:

• investigating the incident that led to your injuries
• gathering proof of liability (fault) and documentation of the nature and extent of your injuries and other losses (damages)
• hiring consultants and experts to help strengthen your case
• negotiating a settlement with insurance adjusters and opposing attorneys
• knowing when to escalate things by filing a personal injury lawsuit in court
• handling all steps that follow the filing of a lawsuit, from depositions to court appearances and settlement conferences, and
• in the rare event that your personal injury lawsuit goes to trial, preparing and presenting your best case to the jury or judge.

Learn more about what your personal injury lawyer will do.

Why Personal Injury Experience Matters

The practice of law is pretty highly specialized. A tax lawyer may know less about personal injury law than you will after you read a few AllLaw articles.

So, your first task is to find a lawyer with experience representing people who file injury-related insurance claims or lawsuits (called "claimants" or "plaintiffs"). A lawyer with this kind of expertise:

• will be familiar with how state and local laws might affect your case
• will know the local court scene, including the rules and the players, and
• won't back down from a fight with the insurance company or the other side's lawyer.

You probably don't want to be represented by an attorney who primarily defends people and businesses against personal injury claims. But an experienced plaintiff's lawyer who has some experience representing personal injury defendants or insurance companies can be a real asset, since they'll be able to anticipate the other side's moves and strategize accordingly.

How to Start Your Personal Injury Lawyer Search

There are several great ways to start looking for the right personal injury lawyer.

Ask Friends and Acquaintances for Referrals

Reach out to your network of friends, family, coworkers, and others to see if they know or have been represented by a personal injury lawyer they can recommend. Put the word out on social media, send out group texts or emails, and run it past folks as you bump into them.

You can look at this initial step as simply laying the groundwork for your search. You don't need to make a decision about a lawyer solely based on someone else's recommendation. Different people will have different responses to a lawyer's style and personality. But if a certain lawyer sounds like a good fit for you, add them to your list of candidates.

Talk to Lawyers You Already Know

You may already know a lawyer, either personally or because the lawyer has represented you in the past. Maybe they have experience in personal injury cases, or perhaps they can refer you to another lawyer who can help. Most lawyers have a fairly substantial network of co-workers, colleagues, and peers who specialize in a wide range of legal work.

Online Searches, Reviews, Testimonials, and Publications

You might start by doing an online search for "personal injury lawyer [name of your city or town, and name of your state]". Once you see a few results for lawyers near you, do a deeper dive on several candidates:

• Can you find any online reviews or client testimonials about the lawyer?
• Do other lawyers or legal organizations have anything to say about the lawyer?
• Does the lawyer or their law firm have a quality website with helpful information about different areas of the law, including what clients can expect in a personal injury case?
• Has the lawyer written any articles (online or otherwise) for reputable organizations or publications?

Law Websites

Websites like Lawyers.com and Avvo.com (both part of the Nolo family) offer free lawyer directories that let you search by location and area of law, get detailed information about lawyers, and check out reviews of their services.

You can often use sites like these to directly connect with a personal injury lawyer in your area—through chat and information submission features—and hopefully get an early lay of the land regarding the strength of your case.

Bar Association Referrals

A number of state bars and similar organizations maintain some version of a lawyer referral/search program, including:

• the State Bar of California's Certified Lawyer Referral Services Directory
• the Illinois State Bar Association's Illinois Lawyer Finder
• the Ohio Bar's Looking for Legal Help portal
• the Pennsylvania Bar Association's Get a Referral service, and
• the Texas Board of Legal Specialization

Check out this list of state bar associations as a starting point. The American Bar Association also has a state-by-state collection of bar directories and lawyer finders.

How to Choose the Right Lawyer

No matter how you initially connect with a potential lawyer, if you're considering hiring them, it's best to sit down in person to discuss your claim. Bring copies of all the documents you have concerning your claim: any police report, medical bills, income loss information, and all correspondence with the insurance company.

Most personal injury lawyers don't charge for an initial consultation. Here are a few basic things to find out from the lawyer during your first interview.

General Experience

Find out about the lawyer's background and experience. If you're interested in where the lawyer went to school, ask that— although it isn't as important as experience in the real world. Some other questions might be:

• How long has the lawyer been in practice?
• Roughly what percentage of the lawyer's practice involves personal injury cases?
• Does the lawyer most often represent plaintiffs (people suing) or defendants (people getting sued)?
• Does the lawyer have specific experience with personal injury cases like yours? For example, if you're thinking about suing your doctor for a misdiagnosis, you want a lawyer with experience handling medical malpractice cases; a lawyer who specializes in car accident claims probably wouldn't be a good fit here.

Other Verdicts and Settlements

You might find online information about the biggest or latest settlements and court verdicts the lawyer or firm has obtained for their clients. Or, you might ask the lawyer about specific case outcomes during your initial consultation. Details like this are always interesting, but take this information in stride.

A lawyer is naturally going to want to spotlight their biggest success stories, but every case is unique. Of course, if the lawyer has a history of winning significant amounts of money for clients in specific kinds of cases (medical malpractice, for example) like yours, that likely means they've got a good reputation along with valuable experience.

Who Will Work on Your Case?

In almost every law practice, lawyers work together on cases. Less-experienced attorneys, clerks, and paralegals often handle routine tasks. This can benefit you if the work gets done more quickly. But you'll want to be sure you know and are comfortable with the lawyer who will spearhead settlement talks and represent you in court.

Whether it's a small or large firm, make sure you know who would have primary responsibility for your case and which lawyer you'd be dealing with directly. If more than one lawyer would be working on your case, you might want to ask to meet and discuss your case with the others too. And ask which specific parts of the case the primary lawyer would handle personally and which would be turned over to a paralegal.

Lines of Communication

Your ability to communicate with your lawyer is critical to the outcome of your claim. Does the lawyer listen to you? Does the lawyer explain things well? Do you get the sense that the lawyer will keep you informed and truly listen to your input before making important decisions in the case?

A lawyer's willingness to listen and ability to understand your viewpoint will affect your ability to make good decisions, and your ability to talk to one another may make the entire process much less stressful.

What's Your Injury Settlement Goal?

After you've talked with the lawyer about the facts of your case, they may give you a ballpark estimate of how much your case is worth and how difficult it may be to get the insurance company to settle for something in that range. This is the time to discuss different approaches to settling the case, including:

• aiming for an amount within a certain range as efficiently as possible
• trying for an amount greater than what the insurance company has already offered you as quickly as possible, or
• going for the highest amount possible, no matter how much time and money you have to invest in the case.

Asking to approach a case in a certain way when you first hire the lawyer doesn't mean that you're stuck with that approach. As the case goes along, you're always free to ask the lawyer to change tactics.

How Do Personal Injury Lawyers Get Paid?

Any lawyer you talk with should be able to clearly spell out:

• how they'll get paid for their legal services, and
• who is responsible for paying case costs and expenses.

The first thing to understand is that the vast majority of personal injury lawyers work under a "contingency fee" agreement. Under this kind of arrangement, the lawyer agrees to represent an injured person and try to recover money on their behalf. But the lawyer only gets paid for their legal services if the injured person receives compensation in the form of a settlement or court award. If the client loses the case and walks away with nothing, the lawyer doesn't get paid.

Besides the agreed-upon percentage the lawyer will receive, there are other details to iron out, including who will shoulder the costs of building the case. Learn more about lawyers' fees in your personal injury case.

What If a Lawyer Doesn't Want Your Personal Injury Case?

Finding a lawyer you want to hire is one thing. But that lawyer also has to want to take you on as a client. Lawyers have several reasons for rejecting clients.

As we've discussed, most personal injury lawyers work on contingency. So, keep in mind that if the amount of money you're likely to receive is small, the lawyer's share will be a great deal smaller, and it might not be economically worthwhile to take you on, especially if their caseload is already full.

A lawyer might also decline to take your case if the odds of winning full compensation are low. Maybe it's a 50-50 question as to who was at fault, or the person responsible for the accident may have little or no insurance coverage.

If a lawyer rejects your case, be sure to ask why—the reason may have nothing to do with you or your case. If the lawyer is too busy to take your case, ask for a referral to another firm. If the lawyer thinks your case is too challenging, get a second, or even a third, opinion. A case that doesn't seem suitable to one lawyer may be perfect another.

Learn more about how personal injury lawyers decide to take a case.