How to Choose the Right Personal Injury Lawyer

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Please rise. Court is now in session.

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All rise.

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All rise.

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I strenuously object. A legal podcast brought to you by the Pittsburgh law from a Flaherty Fardo

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is now in session.

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All those seeking information about the law and legal matters affecting the people of Pittsburgh

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and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, half-baked opinions and a dose of self-indulgence

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are invited to attend and participate.

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I brought the truth! You can't handle the truth!

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I object, your honor.

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Your honor, I object.

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You would!

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Listen, we don't know you. We don't know who you are. We don't know what you do.

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So please do not rely on anything we say as legal advice.

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I'm Noah Fardo, presiding. My wingman, attorney Bill Rugell.

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And all we're trying to do is bring a little irreverence.

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Well, let's start the insanity.

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Call the first witness.

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Hello, Bill.

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Noah, how are you today?

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I'm doing good. And I think we got something very serious for people that this advice could

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theoretically save people 500,000 or millions of dollars because who you choose as your lawyer

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could mean millions of dollars worth of difference to you in your case. Agreed?

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You've sold me on the stakes. Yeah, in many ways, it's one of the most important decisions.

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Hopefully, it's a decision people when it comes to an injury don't ever have to make.

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But when they're confronted with that decision, it's an important one.

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It's the most important decision in the case process.

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And it's funny when we think about hiring professionals, you know, whether it's plumbers,

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electricians, even picking a doctor, how much research do people really do?

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And is it different than picking a lawyer? Initial thoughts?

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That's right. So our goal here today is to be able to give our listeners a guide.

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They've been hurt. Someone in their life may have told them, hey, you need to get a lawyer.

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And now they're confronting the now what decision? How do I go about making this decision?

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And that's what we're going to try to help them answer today.

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Well, in the in the scheme, mean lawyer marketing that that often exists for these types of cases,

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we are only talking to people that are seriously injured or dead. Correct?

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Well, I'm not talking to someone who's dead. I don't expect them to call us.

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I know, but that's I've actually seen billboards for lawyers that said dead. Call us.

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It's pretty good. And that's the that's the marketing.

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Lionel Hatt's attorney at law is my card. It turns into a sponge when you put it in water.

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Oh, classy marketing is where this all starts, because when people are trying to figure out

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which lawyer do I call, they're usually going by who has marketed the most.

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That doesn't obviously make them the best. That's right. And, you know, they rely on the

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marketing materials and the most overt marketing materials, commercials and billboards,

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because that's what's out there. That's the easiest thing to find.

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And those are the things that they've encountered casually throughout their lives.

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But I would urge someone who is facing the decision to hire an attorney

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to take a more active approach than that.

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Don't call the first attorney who pops into your mind because of marketing materials

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that you've been consuming for 20 years. Right. But it's an important decision.

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And it doesn't come down to who advertises the most. And it doesn't come down to price.

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You got to be very careful about price, which we'll get into today as well.

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But our goal, who we're speaking today, are people who have been seriously injured or have

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loved ones who were seriously injured and need advice on any strategy tips or

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hints on how to pick the best personal injury attorney for their case.

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You with me? I'm with you. And to that, when I talk about the best personal injury attorney,

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I feel proud to say my partner is one of the best personal injury attorneys,

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Sean Flaherty. Good morning, Sean. Hey, how is everybody today?

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Well, that's quite an introduction. I don't know if I can live up to that.

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Listen, nobody, Bill, and you and I have said this and we've together, we've been practicing

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over 70 years and we've known each other, you know, for a long time.

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We've been practicing over 70 years and we've known each other, you know, very close for the

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past 16 years, Sean and I longer. But nobody settles a case better than Sean Flaherty.

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Nobody handles a mediation better than Sean. Agreed?

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A thousand percent, yes. Yeah. So that's a good compliment,

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Sean, and we mean it. But let's help people today.

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How I want to break this down is I think we can break it into three different

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main issues with the most important issue last that most people don't think of.

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So, you know, something that is probably very far down the list of questions you'd ask,

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but might be the most important question to ask. But Bill, let me start with you today.

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What's the first thing? I'm looking for a personal injury lawyer. Give me some general advice.

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Yeah. So I would hire, I would start with as much kind of word of mouth or people I trust input as

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I can. The downside to that, of course, is every client I've ever had, I tell to not go talking

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about their case to their friends and family. You don't want to betray attorney-client privilege.

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You don't want to get your friends and family called in as witnesses later. And so, you know,

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you may have friends and family who've had good experiences with a lawyer and have no idea that

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that's the case because they haven't talked to you and they're not supposed to talk to you about the

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case while it's pending and often a case after it's settled. I do note that one place that gives you

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kind of a more anonymous or kind of broad strokes version of that is looking at the reviews online,

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right? Look at the reviews that are showing up on Google or AVO or whoever's doing these

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kind of review sites and, you know, look at them overall and look at the content of them.

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It'll at least start to give you a taste of what it is that people are saying about someone. And

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that's a place to start. That's not a place to end. But I definitely think that that's as close a

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substitute as you're going to get for word of mouth in this industry. Well, let me pull a Richard

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Dawson on you. And Sean, you and I are more familiar with Richard Dawson than Bill, perhaps.

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But if we're doing a survey says, but if we are playing Family Feud with the Richard Dawson,

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what I've heard is Friends, which you started with, which probably got like a seven or a 12

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and reviews, which got a 25, 25 people said reviews and the circling most important.

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But Sean, where are you? You're up. Didn't we got friends and we got reviews on the board?

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What else can people do? Was it Richard Dawson? Didn't it? Didn't Louie Anderson also do Family

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Feud? I think Larry Louie Anderson did. And there's somebody else now. I don't know his name.

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Yeah. Harvey currently doing it. Harvey is good. Steve Harvey is very good.

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But Steve Harvey's good. Louie Anderson is good. But in Louie Anderson, it captures a little bit

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where I was going here. You see Louie Anderson doing that show and you like Louie Anderson.

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Who doesn't like Louie Anderson? He's funny. He looks like somebody, you know, who could hug

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your grandmother and make them feel good. Thank you. Thank you so much.

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But the first thing you want to look for, I think, and it's a mutual thing because it's going to be

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a relationship when you have an attorney client relationship, it's two people. The first thing

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I want to know is in evaluating the client is do I like them? Do they like me? You are going to have

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a long term relationship. Most cases take what? How long would you say? A year and a half to two

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and a half years to end in completion if you go through all the trials? You know what? That's

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really good, Sean, because relationships would not be the number one answer, but it should be.

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It may be very up there. Well, very important relationships getting along. Do you connect with

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this person? Do you have the same interest? And I'll even go a step farther. I don't want a case

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just because somebody seriously injured. I need to understand their goals as well, because how many

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times do you, regardless of the amount of money you recover for somebody, it's not filling that

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hole of what they just lost or the harm that they suffer. They still get to live. They have to live

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with it. I'll get back to that in a minute, but I think that the first thing that you need to know

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is and here's what I hear because how many times have we handled cases that have come over from

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other firms? My attorney doesn't call me back. I send them an email. They don't respond. So

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it's going to be you're going to have a relationship with this attorney. The attorney's

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going to have a relationship with you. Are you able to get along? Does he respond? Is he going

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to get back to you within you within 24 hours? That's my goal. I don't always reach it, but I

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always try to. If I'm on vacation, obviously, et cetera, there's a number of things, but

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A, you want to know that you get along with your attorney, that you like your attorney because you

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want to work with this person. Secondly, you're going to realize two people are doing work in

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this case is, you know, the client has to realize and be made aware right from the beginning.

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I'm going to expect things from you as you're going to expect things from me. So you want to

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make that clear that, you know, is this attorney willing to work with me to get my case to completion?

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And the last thing I think you hit on it, Noah, is you always have to let the client know and

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the client has doesn't realize this. The only thing we can get for them is money. That's the

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only thing we are not going to find closure in this case. Ultimately, no matter how much money

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they get when the day's done and the case is closed and they've received their money, they're

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still left in the same situation. All they have is money. Yeah. Look, I agree on all of those factors.

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I mean, how you find them, you talk to people, you know, you see what reputations are, you look at

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reviews, you interview. It's a mutual interview process between the lawyer and the client. We're

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interviewing the clients the same way. I mean, I still think I get the number one answer, but I'm

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just competitive like that. But it's experience. It's not only experience being a lawyer, it's

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experience in that specific specialty. If you have a medical malpractice case involving an OB-GYN error,

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you need to find somebody who's handled medical malpractice OB-GYN error cases before. It's very

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specific. And I don't think clients ask that type of question. Are they familiar with the jurisdiction?

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If it's in federal court, you better ask your lawyer, have you handled federal cases before?

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Because you don't want to hire somebody who just is handling state cases. Let me, I'm not going to

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say I object. What you said is accurate, but you need to consider both sides of what I think is in

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some sense the same coin. You want the attorney to be experienced. And you should not hire someone

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who you don't feel like is able to competently handle your case or knowledgeably inform you

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about your case. But the flip side of that coin is most experienced person in the world doesn't

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matter if you're never going to get to talk to the lawyer. If you call the office and you don't get

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to talk to a lawyer at the time you're doing the intake and you don't get to talk to a lawyer

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in your second call, then really how much is that experience doing for you when what we're trying to

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do is build a relationship with someone who you can trust and who you can work with on developing

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your case going forward. So that's not to say, you know, experience, you know, isn't important.

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And it might be the number one answer, right? It's why every attorney advertisement in the

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world tells you they're both experienced and aggressive. But there's also a lot of experienced

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lawyers out there. And so picking the right person from among them, that's where these other things

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come in. You know, Sean did a great job for me, Bill. I mean, think about it all these years,

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Sean, that's what you taught me more better as well as anything. I mean, I when I was in law

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school sitting in your office, he always got back to people no matter how successful, no matter how

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busy or other things that he had to do. He just is a man. It was a thing of human being decent,

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human decency, right, Sean? Well, you know, and again, you, I like to talk to people. I'm a

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politician son. My dad was the mayor. I mean, so you kind of grow up in that that attitude. But,

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you know, going back to something Bill reminded me of, I heard a law commercial.

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And the attorney said, we know the judges. And I thought, can they even say that? I mean,

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we know the judges, it almost makes it sound as to corrupt because we know there's a lot of bad

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advertising. Yeah, that's, that's the old joke, right? A good lawyer knows the law, a great lawyer

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knows the judge. I mean, I know some of the judges, but I, it implies a certain level of,

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you know, if not outright corruption, at least kind of favor doing an old boys network that,

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that I'm not comfortable with. Yeah, let me, let me add this to on. We talked about experience.

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It's also results. I would want to know if I'm picking the right lawyer, what kind of results

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have you had in the past? Because if it's a serious case, you don't want somebody who's not

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dealing with big numbers or has the resources to fund it. Agreed? Yeah, totally agree.

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Mike, the podcast producer jumping in here in terms of that, and as it relates to reviews,

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sometimes don't people give negative reviews to lawyers just because they're dissatisfied

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with the outcome of their case, even though it may not be the lawyer's fault. Shouldn't you try to

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watch out for some of those one star reviews that aren't really deserved? Yeah. Well, yes and no.

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I mean, a good lawyer and Sean knows this and Bill knows this is always setting realistic

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expectations for your client from the beginning. So you don't run into that situation, but most of

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the reviews and they all different, but some of the reviews I've seen, um, negative reviews

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were more lack of communication, not understanding the process of the case, something happening.

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They clients felt like they were in the dark. So, yeah, I mean, look, negative reviews are a weird

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creature, right? Um, sometimes people give negative reviews because they're legitimately and honestly

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and reasonably aggrieved. And even the best lawyer who does everything right in this regard

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can manage to get a couple clients out there who end up with negative things to say about them

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anyway. And it's tough as someone who's a, uh, looking to hire an attorney to figure out whether

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or not someone's negative review was earned or not. You want to assess the, the number and the

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content of those things and you want to take them with a grain of salt, but you also don't want to

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ignore them. You know, you also want to know that your attorney is active in the community.

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There's a social aspect to being a lawyer that you can't take for granted and your client is

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looking for that. Somebody that is fabric has a network in the community. I think it's really

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important. I, I, I, I don't think you can underestimate that. So two other things. And I,

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if we're looking at the big board of answers and ways that we can help people find the right

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lawyer. Um, I think we have two more that we haven't talked about yet. One is free consultations.

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Sean start with free consultation. It's, it's so important because sometimes the evaluation of

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the case, a, a, a potential client doesn't always know if they have a lawsuit. They, they may believe

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that they have a lawsuit, but does it, does it cover all the legal acumen that they need to pursue

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it and to get it, get a judgment or an award? The, the, the fact is you've got to offer for the

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consultation to do a certain amount of leg work to get back to your potential client and give them

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an evaluation of their case. Isn't every consultation free now? I mean, I've never heard of anybody

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charging for a consultation on a personal injury or medical malpractice. Sometimes it goes further

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than that. Sometimes it's looking at the records, getting, getting what records they have, having

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them get the records, we'll review them and get back to you. Some of my consultations have taken

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two months to complete the consultation before I'm able to give them a final opinion of what I think.

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And if that point they, they like my opinion, uh, that's fine. If they don't, I understand.

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Yeah. I think, and Bill, I'll be interested in your take. I'm, I'm, I would be a little bit

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leery of an attorney who's offering representation right away, because there is a process,

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especially in medical malpractice cases where during our initial consultation,

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we're learning the case, we're reviewing records. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

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doing the intake process most of the time to do it right takes time and a little patience on

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everybody's part. The legal system doesn't turn around that quickly. And, and most consultations

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don't turn around that quickly because there's a lot of material to understand and consider.

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Now I've had any number of, of at least prospective clients, if not people who materialized

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into clients, um, who entered the call and sometimes even exited the call, having some fear that they

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were going to get a bill in the mail. Right. Um, I think the result of other people advertising

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free consultation so heavily is people's expectation is, well, I talked to earlier on the phone,

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they're going to bill me now. You should expect free consultations, but you should probably

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confirm it, right? Make sure when you talk to the lawyer, look, I'm not being charged for this,

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right? If you order my records, you're not going to send me a bill for that. Right. Just make sure

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you know, um, what it is that is and isn't being offered for your own piece of mind.

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Hey, also the, as part of the free consultation process, you know, people still don't always

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understand the contingency fee agreement. If you have a serious case, you've been injured, someone

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has passed. You only want someone to take that type of case on a contingency fee agreement bill,

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a contingency fee agreement explained not from Yale from CCAC, please. Well, you may be slandering

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our local community college, but be that as it may, um, you know, a contingent fee agreement is

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a situation where the, where the attorney receives no fees, no, no payment for their time and efforts

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until after such time as there is some recovery brought in on the case in question, right? Um,

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whether that's a settlement, whether that's a verdict, uh, the lawyer doesn't get paid unless

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and until the client's going to get some kind of payment or money out of the, out of the

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representation. Yeah. And Sean, tell me what you think about lawyers who are willing to take the

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case for less. Why should, should clients just go with the lowest fees or are there some red flags

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that people need to know about? Yeah. Sometimes you do get what you pay for. Um, I mean, I don't

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want to be disparaging of other attorneys. That's, that's not my style, but you do want to make sure

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that your attorney is, uh, ready to go to do everything to completion. Um, and sometimes if

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they're cutting fees, they're cutting corners, guaranteed lowest prices, crazy Eddie, his prices

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are insane to do these cases, right? To do the serious injury cases, the medical malpractice,

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the wrongful death cases, they require a significant amount of time and significant

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amount of resources. And if you're charging such a low fee, I have a hard time believing

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the lawyers are trying to do anything but settle it. If you need to get the case done right,

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it's going to cost money. And our firm puts that money up front and almost all firms do, right?

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Right. Right. Almost all firms do. But again, if, if you're cutting your fee, can you put up the

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substantial amount of capital to risk whether or not you're going to win or lose? You need to put

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up substantial amount of capital to get the right expert witnesses, to get the right other evidence

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to present in front of a jury or to an arbitrator, which is not cheap. If you've got a really good

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case, sometimes you can negotiate the fee, but you can't be Pennywise and pound foolish where

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somebody gives you such a low fee, they got an incentive to settle your case for less,

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just to get rid of it. And that's, that's where you could be losing significant amount of money.

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Obviously, you know, in a case where the goal here is to get money at the back end, you know,

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costs and fees do matter, but finding the right person in that personal relationship and someone

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you can trust and who you know, is going to be working on your case and doing your case right,

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that matters more, especially in a contingent fee situation. This isn't a situation where you're

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looking at writing a check out of your own pocket at the beginning of the case, you're not going to

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see money for months, years, after embarking upon that relationship. But you're going to have that

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lawyer in your life for all of the time between when you hire them, and when and when the eventual,

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you know, recovery occurs. So, you know, don't, don't put that as the the principal driving factor

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of your decision. Because that's going to be a long couple years if you do.

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Yeah, that leads me to number one, too. And it wouldn't be the most obvious number one of what

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people need to think about when hiring a personal injury lawyer. But it's does this lawyer actually

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have the time to work on my case? Because so many lawyers are good at marketing, signing up cases.

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But how many cases can you theoretically work on with all of your, you know, expertise and professional

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time at one time? So you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold

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anybody can just take a Sean, what's your thoughts on that? Well, obviously, the fewer the better.

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I mean, it's if you've got too many cases, you can't, you can't get back to the client, you can't

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you can't really put the attention that you need into it. But and also, wait, let me say this, too.

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It's also about the staff that they have working with them, too. You've got to have staff that is

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is there to organize. Like I said to one client that asked me if I was going to write a motion,

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I said, I'm the last person in the world that you want to be writing the motion. I am, however,

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prepared to argue the motion in court. But if you expect me to do the research and to get it done,

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right? No, that's not my forte anymore. And and we are kind of unique in this regard, right? Because

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on one hand, we all do work our cases together. Very few of our cases are situations where one

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lawyer is siloed and that's the only attorney you're going to deal with. We do all of these

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things collaboratively, but we do them collaboratively among other attorneys. We don't have,

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you know, a staff of seven paralegals, you know, or kind of an administrative staff who's going to

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be doing the work, putting together your motions and kind of handling and managing the day to day

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details of your case. We're going to have attorneys doing that. And it may not be the same attorney

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doing every part of your case. I don't think you'll want that. I think you want a variety

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of opinions and you want a collaborative environment. So I think you want to consider

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all of that together when you're looking at who it is that you want to hire and who it is that

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you're comfortable working with. Yeah, it is a huge difference. I think having a team of lawyers,

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Bill. And, you know, it's funny because when we're screening these cases,

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this sounds bad, but oftentimes we're looking for reasons to say no, we can't help everybody

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and you want to help everybody, but you can't take every case. You have to be selective because if

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you're going to use the time of four lawyers, which is what a lot of our cases are, it has to

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be the right number of cases. Sean, do you think we've helped people today who have been injured

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or have lost somebody in terms of just some general advice to pick the right lawyer?

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Again, I think we have. I think they've got to know that they're picking a lawyer,

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but they've got to say, he's also my friend. Bill, you know, you and I have relationships

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with clients from 10, 15 years ago that you do consider friends. I mean, because you spend

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years of your life through one of the most traumatic experiences of their life with them.

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It's like being in a foxhole, spending that much time together. And I think you do become very

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close. And if you don't, it's probably a problem in the relationship. Yeah, I guess, I guess two

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things on that. It sounds, especially in the abstract, when you're talking about someone

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you haven't met yet, because you're just looking for a lawyer to be thinking of it in terms of

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I'm trying to form a lifelong friendship here. That's a little bit. I agree. I agree. And I know

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you guys aren't wrong. That's how that actually turns out. And if you think you don't like a

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person right out of the gate, don't hire that person. Don't get into that situation. It's

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only going to get harder to get out later. And the longer and the more you have invested in this bad

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relationship, well, hire someone you like, and that you can see yourself being friends with.

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The other thing I would say, different clients, different people have different expectations or

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desires about how they want to handle the case. And look, the good news is the way we handle things

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as a firm, we can, we can handle both of these things. Some people want to hand the case off to

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the attorney and don't want to have to think about it anymore. And some people want to be involved in

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every detail and document, and they want to look at everything that comes in and review the discovery

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and the medical records themselves. We can do either of those things for you, but make sure your

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attorney knows what your expectations are in that regard. If you want to be super involved in the

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case, make sure your lawyer knows it. If you don't want to have to get updates on the case,

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make sure your lawyer knows that too. I think in hitting on that, I'll leave it at this too.

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Ultimately, when I have a case and a client, I eventually, I learn, I know who their spouse is,

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I know who their children are, I know who their parents are. If they have grandparents, I know

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who their neighbors are. I know what kind of hobbies they like, what kind of vacations they take.

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I mean, you need to know your clients so that when they're on the witness stand, you know

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everything about them. And so it's a very personal relationship that you're going to have with a good

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attorney. Yeah. And it's also outworking. I mean, all of that takes time and energy and work. And

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that's how you win these cases, relatively defining win. But that's how you're successful

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in the cases is by putting more work in and knowing those details. That's awesome. Listen,

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I think this one was good. Experience matters. Talk to your friends, look at reviews, talk to

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multiple lawyers. The relationship is very important. Understand the free consultation,

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understand what a contingency agreement is. And at the end of the day, I think

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and I'll give you a final thought, but I think the most important thing is

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make sure it's somebody you can work with and that has the time to handle it and is experienced

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in that type of area. There was an alternate universe version of this podcast that is just

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like three sentences long. How do I choose the right injury lawyer? And I say hire Flaherty

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Fardo and then we're done. We go home. But I think the same things that we've learned and talked

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about are true here. Look, if you call us and talk to us and don't like us, please don't hire us.

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Yeah. And if I don't like you, please don't ask me to represent you. Listen, if you've been seriously

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injured, if you involved in a medical malpractice case, hiring the right lawyer can and often does

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make a significant difference to the outcome of the case. If you have questions about personal

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injury, medical malpractice, how to pick the right lawyer, visit pghfirm.com. And even if you don't

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hire us, we thank you for tuning in to this episode of I Strenuously Object. Please subscribe to our

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podcast feed. Please rate us. Please give us reviews. Help keep this thing alive and well.

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If you have any questions for mailing it in the segment, which we will eventually get to,

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or any other feedback for the podcast, we have a direct email for you. That's at iobject

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at pghfirm.com. Thanks, first of all, for Sean Flaherty for being our guest again here today.

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And now some parting advice. Mr. Simpson, don't you worry. I watched Matlock in a bar last night.

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The sound wasn't on, but I think I got the gist of it. I don't have any parting advice.

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Stay classy, Pittsburgh. Noah, are we adjourned? We are adjourned.

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