As a victim of a personal injury caused by someone else, you very well may find your life turned upside down. Not only do you find yourself received ongoing medical care and treatment, suffering pain, and enduring lost wages, you’ve crucial legal interests that must be protected. You need to be as proactive as possible to find the best San Jose personal injury lawyer. There are some important strategies you should consider employing in your search for the best personal San Jose personal injury attorney:
- Visit with friends, family, and others you trust to obtain personal injury San Jose recommendations
- Use the attorney directory maintained by the Santa Clara County Bar Association
- Access the lawyer director maintained by the State Bar of California
- Schedule an initial consultation with a few attorneys that appear to meet your needs
- Obtain references from prospective attorneys
- Attorney professional disciplinary issues
Recommendations from Friends, Family, and Others
In today’s world, odds are that you’ve a family member, friend, work colleague, or some other associated that had the misfortune of being involved in an accident caused by the negligence of some other party that resulted in personal injuries. As a result, as part of due diligence to find the best San Jose personal injury lawyer, you are wise to obtain recommendations from people in your life whose opinions you trust.
In obtaining recommendations from family, friends, and others, illicit some key information from such a person:
- Of course, find out generally why they think a particular personal injury attorney did a generally good job in their case.
- Ask about any shortcomings they think were exhibited by an attorney during the course of representation, understanding that very few professional relationships are ever deemed perfect.
- Inquire about how a particular San Jose personal injury attorney’s office is set up, including who served as your associate’s primary contact within the firm during the course of representation.
You might want to consider obtaining the names of three to four lawyers from family, friends, and associated. Once armed with that information, you can undertake a bit more investigation about recommended legal counsel.
Use Santa Clara County Bar Association Lawyer Directory
The Santa Clara County Bar Association maintains a lawyer directory. In addition to gleaning names of attorneys from people you know, take advantage of the local bar association’s generally user-friendly resource.
The Santa Clara County Bar Association permits you the ability to undertake a search for a San Jose injury lawyer more generally or you can narrow the search somewhat based on the specific type of injury you are dealing with in your case. You can also obtain direct contact information for different California personal injury lawyers via the local bar association directory.
Use State Bar of California Attorney Directory
The State Bar of California also maintains a directory of attorneys you can utilize when you are seeking a San Jose injury attorney. As is the case with the local bar association that includes San Jose personal injury attorneys, the state bar association also permits you the ability to search attorneys based on practice area.
As an aside, the state and local bar associations offer their attorney director resources at no cost to the public. These directories are part of a bar association’s community outreach and public service efforts.
Legal Aid is Available
When seeking the best injury attorney San Jose, you definitely want to take full advantage of an initial consultation with legal counsel. In San Jose, indeed across California and the United States, an accident and personal injury lawyer will schedule an initial consultation with a prospective client at no cost to that individual.
In order to best evaluate a particular injury attorney San Jose, there are a number of tasks or objectives you want to satisfy during an initial consultation with legal counsel:
- Find out how long an attorney has been in practice. You may also want to inquire about schools attended and any special certifications an attorney may have earned.
- Ask about how well-versed counsel is in representing clients with cases like your own. (Bear in mind that personal injury cases represent a broad spectrum of accident claims, from car collisions to slip and fall incidents to a myriad of other types of injury-causing events.)
- Inquire about how a lawyer’s practice or firm is organized. For example, you will want to obtain information about who will be your primary contact at a law practice should you engage a particular San Jose personal injury lawyer. (In some firms, an attorney is the frontline or immediate point of contact. In other practices, a paralegal or similar staff member provides this connection.)
- A fair question is about a lawyer’s caseload. You don’t want an attorney that has such a heavy case load he or she might not be able to provide you the depth of representation you need and deserve. At the other extreme, an attorney with an unusually light caseload can be an indication that a particular lawyer is not really sought after for legal representation. Although something of a cliché, when it comes a lawyer’s caseload, there is something to be said for finding what fairly might be called a proverbial “happy medium.”
Obtain References
When meeting with legal counsel during an initial consultation, obtain references from that lawyer. Examples of references to consider requesting from a personal injury lawyer during an initial consultation are former clients as well as an attorney’s colleagues. Clients and colleagues of an attorney can each offer unique perspectives on a lawyer.
With some regularity, people collect the names of references from an attorney they are contemplating retaining but then don’t do anything with that information. In other words, the request references and then do nothing with that information. Simply, put, when you are in need of representation by the best San Jose personal injury lawyer, you want to ensure that you exhaust all elements of associated with comprehensive due diligence. This includes having an appropriate conversation with references provided by a prospective personal injury attorney.
The types of questions asked of an attorney’s former client references are precisely the type of queries put forth to lawyers recommended by family, friends, and other colleagues. You do not want to take up too much time when visiting with a reference about their experience with a particular attorney. Therefore, you are wise to prepare a short list of key questions to ask a reference provided by former clients or colleagues of a prospective lawyer.
San Jose Injury Attorney Discipline History
There can be some benefit in ascertaining whether a particular lawyer has been subjected to discipline for one reason or another. The State Bar of California also maintains resources regarding attorney discipline and can provide assistance in obtaining this type of information.
As mentioned a moment ago, a step in the overall process of finding the best San Jose personal injury lawyer is to schedule an initial consultation. Bear in mind that as a matter of general practice among San Jose attorneys, no fee is charged for an initial consultation when a person is seeking legal representation in a personal injury case. Indeed, a personal injury lawyer typically charges no fee unless that attorney obtains a settlement or wins a lawsuit in a particular case.
