Can You Fire Your Personal Injury Lawyer?

A personal injury lawyer is supposed to represent you and help you win your claim or case. This will enable you to obtain the settlement that you want and/or need. However, personal injury lawyers are people and are not perfect. There are good personal injury lawyers and then there are bad and incompetent personal injury lawyers. If you feel as though you have hired a lawyer in the latter category, you may be wondering if you can fire him or her. Well, read this article for more insights into this!

Why you may not like your personal injury lawyer

Personal injury lawyers are people and because of the nature of the work that they do, you and your personal injury lawyer enter into a professional relationship with emotional ties. You may feel as though you and your personal injury lawyer are not getting along for many reasons. They can be as simple as the fact that your lawyer is not answering your phone calls. Either that or you never get to talk to your lawyer and on the rare occasion that you do, you find that you know more about your case and are more familiar with the aspects of personal injury law that concern it than he/she is. In this circumstance, you may be wondering if and how you can fire this person and look for another and more competent lawyer.

You can fire your personal injury lawyer at any time

Reading this probably made your heart sing with joy. You can indeed fire your personal injury lawyer at any time and you can hire a new one immediately afterward. This would be of great advantage to you if you are about to sue the defendant for a seven-figure settlement.

Remember that since your personal injury lawyer represents you as far as your personal injury case is concerned, you need to trust him or her 100%. Additionally, you need to be able to confide in this person regarding sensitive legal matters. You also need to have the confidence that this person knows enough about personal injury law and thinks logically enough to make sound decisions that will help you get the settlement that you want, need, and deserve!

Do you have to pay more to hire another lawyer?

No, since all personal injury lawyers tend to charge a flat fee of 33% of your final settlement amount. Additionally, you’ll only pay one attorney fee no matter how many lawyers represented you in your personal injury case. The different lawyers will split the 33% fee among themselves. Each firm will take the amount that is proportionate to the amount of work that it did on your case.

Will I have a hard time finding another lawyer because they will share the fees?

Well, it depends on how much work your first personal injury lawyer did in drafting and prepping your case. If it’s been a lot, then yes, another personal injury lawyer may be hard-pressed to take your case because his or her final share of the fees will be quite small – he or she will be doing relatively little work in comparison to the first lawyer. The second lawyer will evaluate your case based on the final settlement value and the amount of work that the first lawyer did. However, don’t worry. If your case has a large settlement value, this will encourage a second attorney to take your case regardless.

You don’t have to worry about getting a smaller settlement amount because you feel that your current personal injury lawyer in Waterloo and his or her work are ‘not up to the mark!” You always have the option of terminating your existing relationship with your current lawyer and looking for another (more competent, qualified, and talented) lawyer to represent your case/claim.