Questions To Ask A Personal Injury Lawyer During A Consultation

Every good personal injury lawyer arranges to offer a free consultation to any potential client. Any possible client that has a chance to take advantage of that free consultation should know what questions to ask.

General questions to ask:

• Seek information on the attorney’s experience.
• Seek information on the same attorney’s education.

Questions that elicit specific answers

• How many cases have you handled in the past? What percentage of those were devoted to an issue that focused on a personal injury?
• Have you tried a case in court? If you have tried more than one case, what is the largest verdict that you have ever received?
• What is the largest settlement that you managed to get, after the pre-trial negotiations?
• What plans do you have for tackling this case? What problems do you anticipate?
• What method do you use, when communicating with clients?
• If you agree to be a client, will you be dealing with the lawyer you met at the consultation? A large firm might refer a client to a less-experienced attorney.

You want to hire a lawyer who knows tort law and who knows how to craft and file personal injury claims and lawsuits that are in accordance with it. Your claim or lawsuit can be dismissed by the judge. This is especially true if the judge finds that you have no case under tort law. Your legal team will become the prosecution. It is up to your team to prove that the defendant has committed a wrong that is worthy of a monetary settlement. Your legal team must also prove that the defendant has breached a certain degree of duty of care towards you.

One question that it does not pay to ask:

How much money can I expect to get for my claim? It does not pay to ask that question, because no attorney can give a good answer, in the absence of more information.

Consider it a good sign, if a lawyer says that he or she would be willing to take your case. Most personal injury lawyers in Waterloo charges a contingency fee. No attorney would get much of a fee, if a possible client did not have the sort of case that promised the chance to win a fair amount of money for the person/client that had chosen to file the personal injury claim.

In other words, if, in a lawyer’s eyes a case does not seem to offer the promise of a profitable win, lawyers will not want that particular case. When personal injury lawyers have no interest in a case, they well say so, during the consultation. Hence, a possible client has no reason to ask this: How much will I get for my claim?