Sadly, all too often people in Illinois and Indiana are seriously injured or killed while at work, at home, or on our roadways — or while simply going about their daily lives. Most of this harm is caused in preventable accidents, where investigations reveal one or more parties have legal liability for what has happened.
To learn more, read our discussions in: High Hazard Industrial Workplaces: 2024 Online Exposure of Accident Injury and Illness Realities; The Reality of Widespread Industrial Work Accident Deaths in Illinois and Indiana: Warning to Our Workers; and Public Crisis Declared by DOT Secretary Pete Buttigieg as Traffic Fatalities Have Largest Increase Since 1975.
These injured victims and their loved ones must endure terrible things in the days, weeks, and months following the event itself. There is not only their physical and psychological pain and suffering, but the medical care and treatment; surgeries; anxiety; and anguish. And this comes alongside other things like loss of normal spousal and familial relationships, and of course the inevitable financial stressors.
To complicate things even further, they also bear the legal burden of pursuing justice against those who have legal responsibility for their injuries. This must be done within a certain time frame, and if they miss that legal deadline then their claims will be barred as a matter of law, no matter how meritorious. Read, Deadlines for Injury Victims to File Lawsuits: Statutes of Limitations.
Accordingly, most will seek out the help and support of a lawyer or law firm to help them with these legalities. The importance of this decision cannot be underestimated. At the same time, taking on the task of finding a lawyer while dealing with medical care and psychological realities that come with catastrophic injuries can be overwhelming.
Therefore, we are providing a series of articles that go into aspects of choosing a personal injury lawyer in our part of the country, as well as aspects of pursuing claims for justice under various personal injury laws of Illinois and Indiana.
- See: How To Choose the Right Personal Injury Lawyer for You and Your Family and What To Look For in a Personal Injury Lawyer in Indiana or Illinois.
For those seeking representation, we provide today a list of questions that may help them as they talk with prospective attorneys before formally hiring them. In the next article, we offer a series of questions that the injured victim and their family members might want to ask after they have entered into a formal attorney-client relationship with their chosen advocate.
What is the attorney’s educational background and past legal experience in personal injury law?
Any attorney licensed to practice law in Illinois or Indiana will have earned a doctoral degree from an accredited law school. You may want to know where they got that degree, as well as where they went to undergraduate school.
Check out their online biographies.
- How long have they been in practice with this law firm?
- How long have they been practicing personal injury law?
- Why did they choose this type of law (as opposed to things like probate law, business transactions, etc.)?
- Ask personal background questions, too, like: are they lifelong Hoosiers? Do they have family in Chicago?
Going over the lawyer’s education and experience as shown on their resume (usually found on their website) not only helps you understand their legal acumen but gives you an opportunity to learn a bit about them personally, too.
For instance, some may find it helpful to learn things in a lawyer’s personal background, like our founder Kenneth J. Allen is not only a 30-year member of the Carpenter’s Union but he has worked as a Piledriver and Millright (UBC), Teamster (IBT), and RR Trackman (BMWE).
Has the attorney handled past cases that involve similar types of accidents or injuries as yours?
The practices of personal injury lawyers may evolve over time into situations where they have developed a reputation and expertise for handling a certain type of injury case. For instance, some lawyers are adept at medical malpractice cases in no small part because of past victories dealing with doctor negligence or hospital errors where people got hurt. Some attorneys may write and speak on their lessons learned over their years of semi-truck crash litigation. Others may have extensive knowledge and compassion into the life-altering effects of blunt force trauma, traumatic brain injuries, or spinal cord damage.
As an example, our firm senior partner Bryan L. Bradley has been a noted speaker and writer on issues dealing with semi-truck crash injury litigation for many years.
Questions into the lawyer’s past experience in your particular type of accident and resulting injury should be welcomed as you make your choice in representation.
Who will be the attorney in charge of your case, and who else will be involved as attorneys or support staff?
For most large personal injury cases, there will be more than one attorney handling the details of the representation. The captain of the ship will be the “attorney in charge” or “lead counsel.” However, there may be more attorneys involved in all sorts of things – including court hearings over evidence fights, to questioning witnesses in depositions, and drafting legal briefs, motions, and more. Who are these lawyers? What are their qualifications? What about support staff? Will specific paralegals be assigned to the matter?
Having a legal team on your case is a good thing. After all, the defendants will likely have not only their internal management or legal staff involve in their defense, but all their insurance carriers will be busy with adjusters and defense lawyers who have significant expertise in finding ways to minimize exposure if not outright deny responsibility for what transpired.
Asking questions about who all will make up your team on the legal battlefield is a savvy thing to do.
What will they charge in legal fees?
There is no law that every lawyer or law firm has to charge the exact same thing, but there are laws that require certain things be handled in a certain way when a personal injury case is involved.
Personal injury lawyers in Illinois and Indiana will not ask their clients to pay them an hourly rate, unlike lawyers who do things like handle estate planning or divorce cases. Instead, they will offer a “contingent fee agreement.”
In these representation contracts, it is agreed between the client(s) and the lawyer (or law firm) that there is no payment for legal services until there is a recovery (by settlement, mediation, or trial).
Then, the lawyer is paid a percentage of that recovery, called the “contingent fee.” You have a right to understand the details of how this percentage will be calculated. Ask if it will it stay the same throughout the case, or will it increase if things have to be tried to a jury verdict? And learn about the related costs, too.
What about the costs and expenses of pursuing your claims?
Legal fees are just the payment for the lawyer’s services. There will also be other things that must be paid in the course of things, from smaller amounts like a court filing fee to a bigger expense like the fees charged by the medical specialist who will give an expert opinion on permanent disabilities.
Ask about these costs. What can be foreseen at the outset? Will you likely need experts like accident reconstruction experts or surgeons or specialists in pain and psychological trauma?
And how will you be asked to pay these costs and expenses. Will they be paid before or after the legal fees are deducted from the total recovery? And what happens if you lose your case?
If there has to be a lawsuit, where will my case be filed?
Some cases can be undertaken and after legal research and factual investigation, liability becomes clear and without any wiggle room for the defendants to avoid taking responsibility for what they have caused. In these matters, the case will be negotiated and resolved without the need for going to the courthouse and filing a formal lawsuit.
However, there will be other cases where settlements before filing a lawsuit do not happen. There can be many reasons for this. Ask the lawyer to describe a full scenario where this will happen.
And if a lawsuit has to be filed, where does it have to be filed under the law? Are you under the state law of Illinois or Indiana? Is there federal law that may apply to your case? For more, read: Work Injuries and On-the-Job Accidents in Indiana and Illinois With Federal Law Protections: FELA, Jones Act, LHWCA, DBA.
And, of course, also ask the lawyer for their past experience in the court where your case may have to be tried. (A lawyer with a working knowledge of that court can be beneficial to you.)
Deciding on the Right Lawyer for Your Personal Injury Case
Of course, there is no law that demands you hire any legal representation before negotiating a settlement or even filing a lawsuit. Please know that taking this route will still mean you have to abide by all civil formalities (filing documents, finding admissible evidence under the applicable rules, etc.) and you will be facing experienced and dedicated defense professionals who will not be swayed by your situation.
Having an experienced and zealous personal injury lawyer not only helps lower your stress and allows you to focus on rebuilding an altered future, but it may balance your interests to help you get a higher recovery from those who have legal duties to pay for damages.
For more on damages, read:
- Loss of Consortium Damages in Illinois or Indiana Work Accidents
- Wrongful Death Damages After Fatal Work Accidents in Illinois or Indiana
- Loss of Earning Capacity Damages After Accident in Illinois or Indiana
- Catastrophic Injuries in an Accident: Damages for the Loss of a Normal Life
- Pain Awareness: Claims to Cover an Accident Victim’s Pain Damages.
Choosing the right personal injury lawyer to fight on behalf of an injured victim and their loved ones is very important in the fight for justice. Having an advocate with whom you have camaraderie as well as confidence can be a great relief as you have to deal with the ongoing realities of a catastrophic accident in Illinois or Indiana. We hope these questions help you in that regard. Please be careful out there!
