There is no shortage of personal injury lawyers in Chicago and the Chicagoland area. Some are very skilled, trial-tested and seek full and fair compensation for their clients. Others are at the other end of the spectrum, unashamed that they couldn’t find the courthouse if it was right in front of them. They’ll settle their clients’ cases for a dime on the dollar if it means less work for them. Of course, there are those in the middle, they have some experience, few, if any trials under their belts, and settle their clients’ cases for, let’s say fifty to seventy-five cents on the dollar. All of these personal injury lawyers, whether good, bad or something in between, have something in common = they all want to load their case inventory with solid personal injury cases. Many of these lawyers, regardless of skill level, go about obtaining personal injury cases in the same ways. Many of them offer a “free evaluation.”
Be very careful of the personal injury lawyer who offers this ”free evaluation.” If what he is offering is a free evaluation of whether or not you have a viable personal injury case, that’s reasonable. If by “free evaluation” he is telling you that your case is specifically worth X amount of dollars, you may want to seek legal representation elsewhere. Now, most skilled personal injury lawyers usually have good instincts on whether a case is small, medium or large fairly early on in a personal injury case, but even the most skilled ones don’t know a specific value. A lawyer who tells you a specific value early as you are discussing your case with him for the first time is usually just making up a number, probably an inflated number, to get you to hire him. There are just so many factors that go into evaluating a personal injury case, including but not nearly limited to: what happened? where is the proper venue for the case? what is the nature of the injuries? what are the past and future medical bills? what are the past and future lost wages? is the injury permanent? what type of insurance is in play? how much insurance is available? The list goes on and on…
At our Chicago personal injury law firm, we are honest with potential clients. We’re not going to tell them that their case is worth a million bucks and we’ll have it to you soon (like many other firms do). Our evaluation is more along the lines of: “We think you have a solid case. We think it has value. We would like to represent you. We will cover all costs while we continuously evaluate your case (evaluations change frequently in an injury case) and only charge you a fee if we are successful in resolving it. We will work aggressively to continuously evaluate your case so we make sure to get you full and fair compensation. Since we don’t get paid until you do, please realize that we are in this together and will fight hard for you.”
If you want someone to blow smoke up you know where call one of our competitors for your free personal injury evaluation. If you’d prefer honesty, please give us a call at 312-957-4166 to discuss your injury case with one of our award-winning lawyers.
~Matt Willens
