Auto accidents are never pleasant. You and everyone around, including onlookers are affected. The physically weakening, emotionally overwhelming, in worst cases, fatal scenarios, and damaged property are clear signs that you are having a bad hair day.
Choosing the wrong Auto Accident Attorney could only make matters worse, reminding you of Murphy’s Law – if anything has to go wrong, it will.
Before you understand the right way to choose an Auto Accident Attorney, it’s important to be aware of the wrong way to choose an Attorney.
If you don’t do your homework before deciding to hire an attorney, you started off on the wrong note.
I’ll explain the right ways to choose your attorney. But regardless of my points below, always remember not to hire an attorney in haste.
Here are five tips that should help you to choose the right car accident attorney
- Be clear on what you want… And know what to look for before you decide on hiring an Auto Accident Attorney. Make a list of the behaviors and traits that you would like to see in your attorney. With the behavior patterns and traits, you can be sure of receiving the services of services that you are actually looking for. You can look out for…
- Your accessibility to them and their responsiveness to you.
- How passionate and competent they could be in handling your case.
- Their ability to explain the entire process of handling the case.
- Their transparency in explaining terms and conditions, including charges in a clear manner.
- Will give you only realistic guarantees with your case, explaining very clearly what your chances of winning the case are.
- Proactive in your case and attends to all your questions and needs. In any car accident case, you need an attorney who hears you out, rather than you having to hear them out.
- Look out for what you need to avoid. On the contrary, there are certain things that should caution you to stay away from an attorney who exhibits any of the below mentioned behavioral traits.
- Promises unusual and unrealistic guarantees with your case, especially when it comes to compensation.
- Fails to return your calls and is never found to be around when you really need them.
- Paying court bills are ignored.
- Being aggressive unnecessarily.
- Neither updates you with valuable case proceedings nor let you in on any necessary information. Your attorney should always keep your best interest in mind. They should be someone who acknowledges your needs and attends to you whenever required
- Always choose a local attorney. Only local attorneys would understand your local environment and jurisdiction the most. They are the ones who will be more experienced handling individual local cases. They would know best on how to steer around your state court’s system.
- Do attorney background checks and observe them at work You need to study your attorney before even deciding to meet one. Fortunately, files and records of all attorneys can be found at State Bar Associations. What you can do here is to check if there has been any petition filed against an attorney that you have in mind, thereby helping you to decide whether it’s a good idea or not to hire them. To learn more, what you can do is go to a courthouse. All courthouses are public places, and you can actually go in there to observe how your attorney would handle cases that are similar to yours.
- Interview, Decide, and Hire Before you schedule a meeting with your attorney, be prepared with a list of quick questions that you’d like to ask them.
Their responses will help you to decide on making the right move by hiring the right attorney.
You can come up with questions like- What areas do you specialize in?
- How long do you think my case is going to take?
- Would you be working on my case or is it going to be someone else?
- May I have your cell phone number if I have a question during my case?
- What are your terms and conditions? Once you’re done with the interview, you can take some time to decide. Follow up with any other questions that you may have, feel comfortable with your candidate, the terms and conditions, the fee structure, and possibly anything else. Once you’re through with all of the above, you’ll have confidence in hiring an attorney that will be right for your case.
Extra Tips
- At any given point, if you feel that the Attorney that you chose is not doing their job and not meeting their expectations, don’t hesitate to fire them. While this might be time consuming for you to go through the whole process of hiring an attorney all over again, it might pay off in the long run.
- When in doubt, always ask