You have found yourself in unfortunate circumstances – you have sustained injuries at the hand of someone else and require legal assistance. Considering the sheer number of ambulance chasers out there, you may be trying to figure out how to end up with an ethical lawyer.
Fortunately, this is a lot easier to manage than you might think. For every rotten apple, there are plenty of moral and upstanding attorneys. If you want to increase your chances of finding such an individual for your case, here is what you need to do:
Research Potential Attorneys
The first thing that you need to do is to do research into any attorney that you want to hire. Law123.ca personal injury lawyer isn’t going to chase you. No, they will let their work and reputation do the talking for them. This is why you should take a look at prior cases to see how they were handled.
At the same time, see if you can find any reviews about the attorney. Clients will often leave either glowing or disparaging remarks depending on their experience. Look for attorneys who have been thorough, disciplined, and patient. These individuals will offer you the kind of service that you are looking for.
Consider Their Approach
You should also think about how these attorneys approach you. Are they showering you with information and badgering you to follow a certain path? If so, now is the time to drop these individuals and to stay away from them at all costs. It is unlikely that they will take the ethical route.
Instead, consider attorneys who take the time to explain your case to you. They will then outline all the avenues open to you and describe the advantages and disadvantages for each of them. While they will provide you with guidance, in the end, they will leave the final decision up to you.
Listen to Their Claims
Ambulance chasers will often make bold claims with no interest in actually backing up these statements. They may promise that you will end up with a specific amount of money within a set period of time. However, they have no authority to make such promises. After all, they aren’t in control of the situation.
This is why you should look for attorneys that give you possible outcomes without making any guarantees. What’s more, only look for attorneys who only get paid if you win a case. This gives them more incentive to work towards the right goal.
Give Yourself Time to Think
Don’t ever be pressured into choosing a lawyer or making a legal decision. Instead, always give yourself plenty of time to think. This is especially true if you are all shaken up after an accident. Talk over your options with family and friends to make certain that you are making the right decision for yourself.
These are all the ways that you can avoid ambulance chasers. Thus, these are tactics that you should certainly try in these circumstances.
File a complaint
Even after doing all the research work, you can still have a bad experience with the lawyer. You might think that now you are unable to do anything against the attorney. But this is not the right thing, you still have a chance and can get legal help.
So if you are involved with such an attorney, you have the option of firing him. Find another capable attorney and discuss these things with him. He will surely find a better solution for you. Furthermore, you have to go through your contract and look for a better way to deal with the problem.
And if the lawyer is harassing you in any way, you have the right to file an official complaint against him. Furthermore, even in case of mishandling your case, you also have the right to file the complaint. Because this is clearly a breach of contract.
Your lawyer is supposed to make you win the lawsuit. But if he is intentionally making you lose it, you will know it. And this is clearly legal malpractice and can cost him his license to practice. So if you are sure that your lawyer is actually an ambulance chaser, do take action against him. It is never too late to do anything right.
But before you take a solid step, you need to know about things that lawyers are allowed to do.
What lawyers can do and don’t?
Attorneys and lawyers belong to the legal system and therefore, there are strict rules and regulations for them to follow. They have set criteria for them to follow when talking to the public. Likewise, they have to follow certain rules when dealing with their clients.
Here is a list of things that lawyers cannot do;
- Lawyers cannot promise you certain results. For example, he cannot claim that you will get a set amount (i.e. $15,000) in a period of one month. This is clearly a breach of rules and regulations. He can assure better results but making such claims is not legally right and you cannot trust such people.
- If they do not have a proper license or certification, they cannot claim to be a specialist. For example, he cannot say that he is a personal injury lawyer while he does not have certification for that.
- Although there are exceptional situations, an attorney cannot pay other people for finding new cases.
These are the things that a law-abiding lawyer won’t do. What ambulance chasers do is hire some people. They keep an eye on accident cases and get information from police and relatives of the family. Then they suggest doing a “free case evaluation”. This free consultation eventually results in him talking to the lawyer.
He will deliberately make the situation complex and complicated for the injured person. And then will suggest him going to a lawyer and will give the contact information of his assigned lawyer. This is ethically and legally wrong.
