Personal injuries attorneys often get a bad reputation, but here’s what’s really going on.
Personal injuries attorneys face some unique challenges as legal professionals. Some of these difficulties give personal injury attorneys a bad reputation or even make it seem like the attorney is a bad person. Most of the time, this is not the case. Let’s look at some of the biggest three “problems” with personal injury attorneys to provide a background and explain what’s really going on.
They Need to Remain Civil
Personal injury attorneys will commonly encounter the same individuals throughout their legal career. For example, most will practice in one geographical area, which means they will often go up against the same defense attorneys and stand before the same judges. This means that they need to remain civil and professional at all times.
It might seem like an attorney isn’t advocating hard enough for the client’s case, but they are. Going “all out” with a legal argument doesn’t necessarily mean a judge, jury or opposing counsel will accept it. Personal injury attorneys want to win as much as their clients, but they won’t stoop to unprofessional levels to make it appear they are trying harder.
They Need to Earn a Living
Practically all personal injury attorneys work to make a living. Some are more successful, making a very nice living, but most make enough to have a reasonably comfortable life. But to make this living, personal injury attorneys must handle enough cases to produce enough revenue. So at any one time, one attorney may be working on a few dozen different cases. They can do this because some cases can only move so fast.
For instance, when requesting information through discovery, the other side usually has 30 days to produce the information. So after the discovery requests go to the other side, your attorney usually has to wait at least 30 days to get the information. What will the attorney do until the information arrives? Work on another case.
This juggling of cases is necessary to produce enough income to successfully run their legal business. It might seem like the attorney is greedy and wants to hoard cases, but that’s usually not the situation. Not all cases win, and many settle for amounts that result in only a little bit of income for the attorney.
They Follow Their Clients’ Wishes
The attorney may present a legal argument to the judge or identify what causes of action to bring, but at the end of the day, every significant decision is up to the client, not the attorney.
Attorneys are ethically and professionally obligated to do what their clients want, as long as the clients aren’t asking the attorney to do something illegal or unethical. As a result, an attorney may file a lawsuit that seems baseless. But it’s not up to the attorney whether to file that lawsuit or not. If the attorney doesn’t file the lawsuit, the client could either find another attorney who will or just file the lawsuit themselves.
Find out what you need to know about personal injuries attorneys by calling our team at the Wilbanks Law Firm, P.C. at [nap_phone id=”LOCAL-REGULAR-NUMBER-2″].