We receive at least four phone calls a month from people who are not happy with the personal injury attorney they hired. The reasons vary, but if God forbid you are injured, here are helpful questions to ask an attorney before you hire them.
How does your fee schedule work?
New Jersey Court Rule 1:21-7 governs fees for personal injury cases. You’ve heard the commercials—we don’t get paid until you do. Basically, the law firm gets its expenses back, then gets 33 1/3 % of the recovery, and the client gets the rest. The easy example I give my clients is if we settle your case for $100,000 and we have $1,000 in expenses, then you get $66,000, and we get $33,000.
Pennsylvania does not use the same kind of schedule; the fee is mostly based on the written agreement, as long as it is reasonable. I’ve seen New Jersey clients with NJ accidents sign fee agreements with personal injury attorneys in other states, agreeing that the attorney can take a 45% fee before they take their expenses back. Using the prior example, if the case settled for $100,000 and there were $1,000 in expenses, the attorney would receive $46,000 and the client would receive $54,000.
How often will I meet with you or your staff?
Shockingly, we have met with clients who never met their attorney, either via Zoom or face-to-face. It is unacceptable for you to speak only with the staff during the course of your representation. We meet with our clients in the office every three to six months. If the client would rather video conference, we are happy to provide that option. The point is that we know our clients and they know us. If you’re not receiving that personal attention, then how can your attorney zealously and effectively represent you when they don’t really know how the accident is truly impacting your life?
How will I know what is happening with my case?
It is also incredibly important that you understand the type of information that will be coming your way about your case. We copy our clients on everything that we do on their case. If they want to know what’s happening, they can review all of the records and letters we have sent. Further, we give them a text phone number dedicated to their file in the office. If a question doesn’t require a phone call, our clients text us, and we respond within 24 hours. Additionally, our clients have our cell phone numbers. It’s imperative that they can access us in an emergency or if they’re unavailable to talk during normal business hours.
We appreciate all of the clients who have hired and trusted us to help them over the years! We are blessed to continue to have relationships with many of them. Hopefully, you never find yourself needing a personal injury attorney for you or a loved one. If you do, though, look for someone that you can trust, and please ask these questions before you put pen to paper.
Any content, resident submissions, guest columns, advertisements, and advertorials are not necessarily endorsed by or represent the views of Best Version Media LLC (BVM) or any municipality, homeowners associations, businesses, or organizations that this publication serves. BVM is not responsible for the reliability, suitability, or timeliness of any content submitted, inclusive of materials generated or composed through artificial intelligence (AI). All content submitted is done so at the sole discretion of the submitting party.
