Most construction accident attorneys will give you a short, free consultation before you agree to hire them. This is done in order to determine if your case can be handled and for you to assess your work. Before you speak with the prospective construction accident attorney, it is important to have as many facts and as much information as possible about your financial losses and injuries. Take the employment contract with you, together with absolutely all related paperwork. If you have pictures of the injuries or of the scene when it happened, records of work days missed, and medical records, take them with you.
It is always very important to look for a highly experienced construction accident lawyer, one who is very versed in national and state workplace safety, negligence, product liability laws, transportation, dealing with workers’ compensation, health care companies, insurance companies, and preparing cases to go to court. This is why, during the consultation, it is really important to discuss some very important things, like the ones highlighted in the following lines.
Years Of Experience
You want to hire an attorney with the highest possible experience and you have to focus on construction accident cases. It is not enough to work with personal injury cases. The considered attorney has to have handled as many cases involving construction claims as possible.
You should ask the considered attorney questions about how much of the practice is devoted strictly to cases like yours. Learn about how many were handled in the past and then see how many of those were settled. Did a part of them go to trial? This is an important question to ask because insurance companies take advantage of attorneys who prefer to settle and never went to trial.
Expected Settlement
You should ask questions about the typical settlement you should expect in a case like yours. While the construction accident attorney cannot tell you exactly how much you are going to receive, a ballpark amount should be presented.
Then, you should discuss the fee structure. Never hire a construction accident attorney who does not agree to a contingency fee system. However, it is possible that you would be asked to pay some of the out-of-pocket expenses. While these are amounts will be taken out of the final settlement, it is still something you need to take into account.
References And Testimonials
The best attorneys will always give you references and there should be testimonials presented on the website. This allows you to talk to past clients so you can see how the relationship between them and the attorneys went.
One important thing to say about references and testimonials though is that they are handpicked by the injury law firm for which the construction accident attorney works. You should thus also look for reviews written on third party websites or forums where people discuss their experience with injury attorneys. Such reviews are always correct and can highlight potential problems you might have with the considered injury law firm. Just make sure to expect to see more negative reviews than positive ones since people tend not to talk about the positive experiences.
