Skip to main content How to Find a Personal Injury Lawyer
If you sustained one or more injuries as the result of a personal injury incident, you should follow a series of steps that help you to recover from financial losses. Whether you got involved in an accident or another party committed one or more acts of negligence, receiving medical care, notifying the proper authority about the incident, and gathering physical evidence represent three of the most important steps. As the most important step, contacting a personal injury lawyer can help you receive the compensation that you deserve. The question is not if you should contact a personal injury attorney.
Instead, the question should be how to find a personal injury lawyer.
Before the Internet took off in the early 2000s, finding the right personal injury lawyer involved letting your fingers do the walking through the Yellow Pages. When printed directories moved online, victims of personal injury incidents let their fingers do the typing to contact the right personal injury lawyer. Another effective way to retain the best legal representation is to network with friends and family members. Although knowing how to find a personal injury lawyer is important to know, it is even more important to understand what criteria to consider before you choose an attorney.
A personal injury attorney helps you collect and organize the physical evidence that you need to file a persuasive insurance claim, as well as a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages. Lawyers also interview witnesses that provide support for the physical evidence gathered at the scene of the personal injury incident. Instead of having to deal with an insurance adjuster, your personal injury lawyer acts as an intermediary to give you more time to address other issues such as recovering from your injuries. If you decide to file a personal injury lawsuit, your attorney provides legal support during every phase of the litigation process.
For more than three decades, the personal injury attorneys at Morgan and Morgan have helped clients file successful insurance claims and personal injury lawsuits that awarded them compensation. Since we opened our first office in Florida back in 1988, Morgan and Morgan and Morgan has recovered more than $20 billion in compensation for our clients. Not only do our experienced personal injury lawyers win favorable legal judgments, but we also negotiate settlements that avoid the costly and time-consuming litigation process.
Get started on the road to recovering financial losses generated by a personal injury incident by scheduling a free case evaluation with a personal injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan.
More answers to commonly asked questions
What Qualifications Should I Consider When Hiring a Personal Injury Attorney?
When you schedule a free case evaluation with an attorney from Morgan and Morgan, you are under no obligation to choose the lawyer you meet with to represent you during a personal injury case. A free case evaluation gives you the opportunity to ask questions that help determine the qualifications of the personal injury attorney sitting across from you.
Experience Matters
With more than 30 years of litigation experience, the personal injury lawyers at Morgan and Morgan have developed positive professional relationships with the professionals that you can expect to interact with as your case unfolds. We have strong working relationships with insurance adjusters located throughout the United States, as well have developed positive professional relationships with other attorneys and civil court judges. More than three decades of litigation experience also helps when arguing cases during a civil trial.
Specializes in Handling Your Type of Personal Injury Case
You should hire a personal injury lawyer who specializes in handling your type of personal injury case. Although personal injury law covers many of the same issues for different types of cases, each type of personal injury law presents unique legal circumstances that require the expertise of an attorney who handles similar cases. For example, the physical evidence required to submit a persuasive insurance claim is different for a car accident case than it is for a product liability case.
Gets Clients the Compensation That They Deserve
The most important reason you hire a personal injury lawyer is to recover financial losses and possibly receive compensation in the form of punitive damages. Morgan and Morgan demonstrates our record of success by presenting the recent verdicts we have won and the settlements we have negotiated. We encourage you to review the results of the cases that have contributed to the recovery of more than $20 billion in compensation for our clients.
In addition to positive verdicts and settlements, your personal injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan also possesses a proven record of success in getting insurance claims approved for clients.
Completes a Thorough Investigation
The key to getting an insurance claim approved, as well as winning a favorable legal judgment, is to present overwhelmingly convincing physical evidence. At Morgan and Morgan, we assign a properly credentialed investigator to every attorney who must conduct an investigation. Our investigators know where to look for physical evidence, as well as how to take the types of photographs that reveal another party committed at least one act of negligence. They also know how to reach out to the law enforcement agency or the owner of a business that filed an official incident report to receive a copy of the report. The investigator assigned to your case also helps interview witnesses.
Open to Negotiations
A majority of personal injury lawsuits never reach the trial phase of the litigation process. Both parties try to negotiate a settlement before the case goes to trial. The discovery phase is the phase when negotiations typically take place, as discovery allows both parties to exchange physical evidence and the statements provided by witnesses. The attorney that you hire must be willing to negotiate a settlement. Some personal injury lawyers refuse to negotiate because they want to go for the possibility of receiving more money through the litigation process.
The personal injury lawyers at Morgan and Morgan not only encourage negotiations but also are considered the best negotiators in the legal profession.
Provides Legal Support the Entire Time
If you choose a law firm other than Morgan and Morgan, you might not interact with the same attorney during the insurance claim and civil litigation process. Many law firms assign personal injury attorneys to meet for a free case evaluation, only to have the attorneys disappear for the remaining portion of a case. You cannot afford to have a lawyer delegate legal responsibilities to less experienced litigators. At Morgan and Morgan, the personal injury lawyer assigned to your case works the entire case, from the day of the free case evaluation to the day when your case gets resolved.
Responsive Communicator
Filing an insurance claim, as well as a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages, is often a highly stressful process. You might have to deal with an uncooperative insurance adjuster and/or an attorney for another party who refuses to hand over physical evidence. The last thing you need is for an unresponsive lawyer to add to your already high level of stress. You should expect your personal injury lawyer to respond promptly to emails, phone calls, and text messages. At Morgan and Morgan, our clients praise the responsive way our attorneys respond to all forms of communication.
Positive Client Feedback
Client reviews on sites such as Yelp and Google should not be the only criterion you consider before hiring a personal injury attorney. However, reading client reviews can help you make the right decision when it comes to getting legal representation. At Morgan and Morgan, our more than 30 years of experience has allowed us to compile an impressive list of client testimonials. Our personal injury attorneys have received more than 28,000 five-star reviews left on Google. We receive praise from our clients for many reasons, such as operating with integrity and transparency.
What Types of Compensation Help Me Recover From Financial Losses?
Our primary goal at Morgan and Morgan is to get you the compensation that you deserve for sustaining one or more injuries as the result of a personal injury incident. Filing an insurance claim represents the most common way to help you recover from financial losses. If another party committed one or more acts of negligence, you might have a strong enough case to file a civil lawsuit that seeks three types of monetary damages.
Economic Damages
Economic damages represent the tangible costs associated with your case, such as medical bills, repairs to property damage, and lost wages. Medical expenses are the costliest type of expense, as diagnostic tests, treatment programs, and physical therapy sessions can put you thousands of dollars in debt. To recover economic damages, your personal injury attorney from Morgan and Morgan submits copies of medical bills and records, as well as presents a statement written by your healthcare provider that offers a prognosis of you making a full or partial recovery from your injuries. You also have the right to request compensation for estimated future medical expenses.
Non-Economic Damages
Also referred to as general compensatory damages, non-economic damages refer to the value placed on the emotional distress issues that develop after a personal injury incident. Whether you are a victim of a car accident or defective product, the emotional toll your injuries take can make it difficult to hold down a job and/or maintain close family relationships. Pain and suffering consists of a wide variety of negative emotions, including fear, anger, anxiety, and depression. Although calculating a fair value for non-economic damages can be difficult to do, your personal injury lawyer from Morgan and Morgan uses a formula that factors in the value of economic damages.
Punitive Damages
Civil court judges do not award punitive damages to help plaintiffs recover financial losses. Instead, punitive damages penalize a defendant for committing one or more acts of negligence that caused a personal injury incident. For example, a manufacturer of a product that harmed a customer might have to pay punitive damages for committing an act of negligence. If another party committed one or more acts of intentional negligence, you might receive a value for punitive damages that exceeds the combined value of economic and non-economic damages.
If your personal injury attorney feels you have a strong enough case to receive punitive damages, your lawyer might recommend taking your case to the trial phase of the litigation process.
Learning how to find a personal injury lawyer starts by scheduling a free case evaluation today with one of the experienced litigators at Morgan and Morgan.