We’ve all seen them: Personal injury law firms urging on TV commercials and billboards for you
to call a toll-free number right away. In recent years, lawyer advertising seems to have exploded
in Alabama, and the message of most of those ads is often the same. The advertisement will first
highlight that you don’t owe the lawyers a fee unless you win. However, that is nothing new, nor
is it at all unique to TV lawyers. Indeed, such a “contingent fee,” where the lawyer is paid only
an agreed-upon percentage of any recovery, is extremely common, if not the standard, in
personal injury and wrongful death cases — and has been for many decades. Further, this kind
of arrangement is expressly authorized in such cases by the Alabama rules governing attorney
ethics. See Rule 1.5(c), Alabama Rules of Professional Responsibility.
TV and billboard lawyers will also often emphasize how big their law firm is, suggesting that it
makes them able to fight against a big insurance company looking to take advantage of you. It is
certainly true that if you bring a substantial claim for personal injury or wrongful death, you will
be set against a defendant corporation or insurance company that has far greater financial
resources than you do. They will have full-time employees, claims adjusters and lawyers who
regularly work on the same kind of cases that you would bring. And while that does mean you
will likely need an experienced lawyer to handle your case, it does not mean you need to hire a
lawyer based on a TV commercial or a billboard. And it does not mean that you need to hire a
law firm whose biggest selling point is how many lawyers it has or how many personal injury
cases it has handled.
If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, choosing the right lawyer to represent you
is probably the most important decision you make in your case. It can make the difference
between holding a wrongdoer legally accountable or not, and also the amount that you are able
ultimately to recover.
The fact is, many of the law firms that blanket the airwaves and billboards employ a business
model designed to handle cases on a volume basis. They may sign up as many clients as possible,
settle their cases as quickly as possible, get their fee and move on to the next ones. The person
who you talk to on the other end of that toll-free number probably will not be the same person
you might talk to in the firm’s offices later — if you get to talk to anyone there — and neither may
be a lawyer who actually represents you on your case, if they are lawyers at all! Likewise, much
of the work done on your case, if not virtually all of it, may be handled by office staff who are
also not lawyers. And unless you have a personal connection to your lawyer, you might find it
more difficult to know what’s happening in your case and what decisions are being made on it.
All of this could mean that they don’t necessarily devote the time to understand your personal
situation or to fully litigate all aspects of your claim. It might mean your case gets over more
quickly, but it might not be the best result for you as the client.
At Glenda Cochran Associates, we have decades of experience fighting for the best possible
outcome for our clients who have suffered serious, often debilitating, personal injuries or who
have had a loved one killed in an accident. You can see by our results. We view each case as
unique and deserving of our full attention. You will know there are qualified lawyers working on
your case and who they are. We will get you the compensation to which you are entitled as soon
as reasonably possible, but we will never sacrifice a quick settlement of your case just so we can
move on to the next one. What that means is that we will work each case to uncover that crucial
piece of evidence or that hidden witness necessary to obtain the highest verdict or settlement.
We will understand the full nature of your injuries and how they have affected your life and your
family’s life. We pride ourselves on the close personal relationships we build with our clients and
on the recommendations those clients have made to others on our behalf. You will know who
your lawyers are, and that we are personally fighting for you. Call us today.