Hiring an attorney after you’ve been injured in an auto accident can provide you with the peace of mind that you’re being adequately represented. While many attorneys will take your case, they may do so with the intent on settling too quickly and moving on to the next client – often leaving you with less than you are entitled to. Make sure the attorney you hire is experienced and willing to fight for your rights.

What qualifications should an auto accident attorney have?

According to Tim Young, a Louisiana attorney whose practice handles all aspects of auto accident cases, “The attorney needs to be a litigator more then anything. That simply means that they are very familiar with filing suits, going to court, arguing motions, actually trying cases and being able to present each part of the case when they go to court. A lot of attorneys that handle automobile cases do so on a very high volume and the people that are in their offices that actually handle the claims tend to be paralegals or assistants who do not have legal degrees.”

“The danger of that is that the person’s case may not be prepared properly to get filed in court and to actually go to trial if necessary. So I think the biggest thing that a person who’s handling serious automobile cases needs to have is a very good litigation background in court.”

Young said that consumers should ask attorneys certain questions before retaining them, such as:

• How many times have they actually gone into court during the last year or two?
• How many cases have they actually tried in court?
• Do they have any hesitation or any financial difficulty putting money into the case if necessary?

He explained that, “Cases can become very expensive, especially serious cases that involve depositions, hiring doctors to prove injuries and sometimes hiring experts to prove fault. A person needs to understand that the attorney should be familiar with court, be able to go to court and is willing to go to court.”

Choosing quality over quantity

Some law firms take on high volumes of automobile cases with the specific intent of settling them quickly. However, consumers often lose in this situation. Young has seen this happen too many times and told us, “Part of the process is that these firms do not want to spend a lot of time focusing on individual cases and I believe that they also don’t want to put a lot of money into particular cases in terms of establishing medical damages or hiring experts to prove fault if that’s necessary. They tend to deal with the smaller cases which are easier to settle quickly.”

Case in point

Young provided the following example of a recent case he had where the client had actually been discharged from a large volume practice that was unable to handle his claim:

I believe that the other firm simply didn’t understand the nature of the insurance that was available. Perhaps they thought because the man had had surgery that it was too big of a case for them to handle, but I suspect that it was merely overlooked because it did not fall into the typical small type of case that could be turned over very quickly. We ultimately received more than $200,000 in settlement for his case.

If you or a loved one has been injured in an auto accident, contact an attorney whose practice focuses in this area of law. Click here, to contact a qualified Louisiana Car Accident attorney for a free, no-obligation consultation.