When you have been injured, you put your future into the hands of your personal injury attorney to ensure that you get compensation for another’s negligence. While there are many exceptional personal injury attorneys in Ohio and beyond, not all of them run an ethical business. It is important to understand that you will only get one chance to try your case.
Here at Lafferty, Gallagher & Scott, we take each case seriously. We keep an open line of communication with our clients and never settle for less than what they deserve. Here, we will talk a bit about the process of trying a personal injury lawsuit and your attorney’s role in securing you the settlement you deserve.
Insurance companies have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their client, the policyholder. If they do anything less, they can be sued by the policyholder for operating in bad faith. They have no obligation to you. They are not out to help you. If they can get away with it, they will not pay you a cent.
We tell our clients not to discuss anything with the insurance company. They will use anything you say to devalue your claim. The sense of hiring a lawyer is to protect the value of your claim. In other words, our job is to maximize the value in order to ensure that you are compensated to the full extent under the law.
Your personal injury attorney needs to be willing to take the case to trial. While insurance companies do not necessarily like to take cases to trial because they are gambling more money than even their client’s policy limit, they will. If your injury attorney does not have a record of jury verdicts, you are looking at an attorney who can be easily leveraged into a settlement. In fact, most insurance companies use sophisticated insurance adjuster software that not only attempts to devalue your claim but keeps records on attorneys who will be willing to settle your case to avoid trial.
It is imperative that you remember that you will only get one chance to recover damages for your injuries. In order to maximize your claim, you need a law firm that has a record of success and will not be intimidated into settling in lieu of taking the case to trial. Insurance companies know when they are looking at an attorney who settles cases prematurely.
An attorney can make a living settling cases for a fraction of their value and taking a third of every settlement. They just have to be able to do it in volume. These so-called “settling mills” secure their own solvency, but they do so at the cost of thousands of dollars to their clients.
The attorneys at Lafferty, Gallagher & Scott have a history of success both securing fair settlements for our clients and taking cases to trial. Give us a call or contact us online and we can begin discussing your case today.
All of our partners are AV Peer Review Rated* through Martindale-Hubbell. Out-of-state referrals are welcome for all
areas of practice we handle, including personal injury, workers’ compensation and insurance claims issues.