How to Know You’ve Hired The Best Auto Accident Lawyer

 Posted on September 12, 2018 in Personal Injury

When you’ve been injured in a car accident, it can be difficult to find a good lawyer. Sometimes people sign up with an auto accident attorney who they think is good, but months down the road find themselves wondering if they are getting the best representation they could be. For the people wondering if they’ve hired the best auto accident lawyer for their case, we have put together a list of some of the ways you can tell if you have a good car accident lawyer who is working for you and your best interests. We hope you will find it helpful.

#1. How do you feel when you think about calling your attorney’s office?

Nobody really looks forward to calling their lawyer, and we get that. However, if the thought of calling your lawyer’s office fills you with dread, annoyance, or frustration, you may not be in the right place. If you call during normal office hours, there should always be a friendly voice on the other end to take your call. If the person you need to speak to is not available, you should still feel like your call is important to the person taking the message and you should definitely get a return call within 24 hours.

Additionally, when you call your lawyer’s office to ask a question, you should never feel like the lawyer or paralegal is annoyed with you or trying to rush you off the phone. At the Hoggatt Law Office, we purposely keep our caseload small to ensure that we always have time to listen to our clients, answer their questions, and address any of the issues they may encounter.

#2. Is the person you are working with the most the same person you met when you signed up?

Many law firms have their structure set up in a way that your case will constantly be passed off to different people. You will meet with one person when you sign up, and then your file will be opened by another person, and then you will talk to another person about your medical treatment and then when you are ready to discuss settlement you will talk to another person. This can be confusing and frustrating. Often, people make decisions about whether to sign up with a certain lawyer based on their comfort level with the person they meet with when they sign up. If you are going to be passed off to someone else, how will you know if you have the same comfort level with that person?

At Hoggatt Law Office, you sign up with the lawyer and paralegal who will be assigned to your case throughout the whole process. That means if you are comfortable with them, you will be comfortable for the duration of your case. That also means you won’t have to keep telling and retelling your story to the same person or dealing with conflicting information because you will be working with the same people from start to finish.

#3. How much communication do you receive from your attorney’s office?

If you have signed up with a lawyer and have gone months without hearing from anyone at their office, you may want to rethink your representation. It is important for your lawyer to know what is going on with your medical treatment, your return to work, etc. It is also important for you to know what your lawyer is doing to advocate for you in the meantime. At the Hoggatt Law Office, all of our car accident cases are calendared for 30 day contacts. That means that you will never go more than 30 days without hearing from someone in our office. This allows us to stay informed about your case and to answer any questions you might have more frequently. It also allows us to get to know you better and understand what you are going through so that we can advocate more effectively for you to be paid what you deserve for pain and suffering caused by the car accident.

#4. What do the reviews say?

In this day and age, it is easy to access information about other client’s experiences with your attorney. Look at the attorney’s most recent Google reviews and see if other people are saying things similar to what you are feeling. For example, the Hoggatt Law Office’s most recent Google review is from a client who describes the lawyer as extremely patient, professional, personable, and as someone who “truly cared about what would be right for me.” Other car accident lawyers have recent reviews describing as liars or crooks, explaining how they were talked down to or ignored by their attorneys, how they couldn’t get answers to their questions, or how certain things were never properly explained to them. This kind of feedback should not be taken lightly.

You can even take it a step further and ask the attorney if you can contact some of his or her past clients. If you have a good attorney, he or she will have no problem with you contacting past clients because they surely will have nothing but good things to say. If the attorney tells you he or she can’t allow you to speak to past clients, that should be a red flag for you.

Hopefully this post has given you some things to consider, whether you are just starting out looking for an attorney or you already have an attorney and are wondering if they are right for you. Going through a car accident injury claim can be hard enough – don’t make it harder on yourself by choosing or staying with the wrong attorney.