Would you ever hire a realtor who told you "I'm so good at what I do, I can make any house, doesn't matter how ugly, I can make any house sell for a million dollars or more"? Would you ever hire an accountant who says "I don't care how much money you make, I write tax returns in such a creative way, nobody pays a dime. You won't owe the IRS a dime the way I write the tax returns"?
The answer to both of those questions is, if you're rational, no way. You wouldn't hire either of those folks. I want to talk to you about marshalling expectations in your personal injury case. First of all, let's face some facts. Personal injury, doesn't matter how fierce a trial lawyer you have, in the field of personal injury most cases settle. One of the things you need to consider isn't simply whether you've got a skilled trial lawyer in the courtroom. That 1% of the time you're going to need that. But also do you have an intelligent person who can help understand what I call marshal expectations?
You should have an expectation of what your case is likely to settle for, is likely the insurance company is going to end up offering you based on their history and based on their experience with your sorts of injury cases. Every case is different but there's usually variables that help quell exactly or isolate exactly what we're looking at here.
At my office I've done enough trials and I've seen enough outcomes that one of the things that I'm going to want to do is help you understand what at least I perceive your expectations should be. Every case is not a million dollar case. Rather than just picking somebody who has an animal name as part of their slogan, I'd like you to consider making the same kind of rational decision when hiring an attorney that you would an accountant or a realtor. You need to consider the knowledge base upon which these offers are being made.
Does the insurance company have the complete picture of your injury when they're making the offer? Does your personal injury attorney have the resources to make sure that insurance company has a full understanding of your injuries? Do they have enough time for you? Are you talking to lawyers when you call up to talk to lawyers or are you relegated to the paralegal?
I like to think of this opportunity when I meet with a client to talk about expectations, to make sure that you understand that there really is a relative understanding as to what your expectations should be for the sort of case you have. If that's the sort of team effort you're looking for, much like a reasonable accountant or a reasonable realtor, then I think that we might be able to help. For more information, contact us at 303-782-9999.
