[VivianKnight]

My brother-in-law was burnt over 2/3 of his body due to an industrial accident. He has been in the hospital over 2 1/2 months and is now home recovering. They are in the process of interviewing personal injury lawyers. What type of questions should they ask that will help them evaluate the lawyers so that they can be assured they will be engaging a lawyer with the right expertise and experience? There will be a lot of money involved here and I am afraid that a lot of lawyers would jump at the chance to represent them even if they are not qualified. The suit will be against a large international company whose headquarters is located here so just about every large firm will be conflicted out. I appreciate any help you can provide.

[JudyKayTee]

My brother-in-law was burnt over 2/3 of his body due to an industrial accident. He has been in the hospital over 2 1/2 months and is now home recovering. They are in the process of interviewing personal injury lawyers. What type of questions should they ask that will help them evaluate the lawyers so that they can be assured they will be engaging a lawyer with the right expertise and experience? There will be a lot of money involved here and I am afraid that a lot of lawyers would jump at the chance to represent them even if they are not qualified. The suit will be against a large international company whose headquarters is located here so just about every large firm will be conflicted out. I appreciate any help you can provide.

I am assuming your brother-in-law was an employee, injured in the course of his employment? This is very, very tricky law and, in fact, a sub-speciality, not just liability/personal injury law. In some States you cannot sue an employer at all; in other States you cannot sue if you are collecting/have collected Workers' Comp (or the equivalent in your State). This is not a simple auto accident. It often goes into third-party claims, claims of defects in equipment, known and alleged defects and so forth. Tough to prove.

So I would ask if the Attorney is familiar with workplace accidents. Get the basic info on a couple of cases - and I wouldn't be interested in settlement amounts, I'd be interested in the circumstances of the case. Have the Attorney explain the workplace accident laws in your State to you in detail.

I would be surprised if a lot of Attorneys would "jump" on this because it is quite complicated and time consuming and workplace accidents are not clear cut. I don't understand why you feel large firms will have a conflict with the company you believe was responsible unless the company uses a number of firms for its legal representation.

[excon]

Hello Viv:

Very good questions.

I think it's going to be easy to discern between the neophytes and the more experienced lawyers. But, you're still going to be left with a bunch of very qualified attorneys.

Once you got to that point, I don't know what you could learn from them by asking more legal questions. I'd ask questions more of a "how do you operate your practice" kind of questions...

I say this, because even if you have a great lawyer, if he doesn't return your phone calls, then who cares? It's been my experience, that lawyers NEVER return phone calls - and I hate it.

I am aware, however, that if they DID return my call, that I'M paying him for it, so I try to keep my calls down.

Look, phone calls may not be your thing. The point I'm trying to make is that I think you'll have to look beyond some lawyers' legal expertise, and find one with whom you have a good personal relationship and one whom you can work with.

Any good lawyer should provide you with some satisfied clients with whom you can call, and I would.

That's all I got.

excon

[JudyKayTee]

Advertising is not allowed AND this question is from 2008.

[AK lawyer]

Advertising is not allowed AND this question is from 2008.

Thanks for pointing that out. It hate it when that happens. :(

Methinks there aught to be a way to filter out threads that are 3 years old except for one post that is "today".