1. Becoming a Successful Personal Injury Lawyer
There are many things you should strive to do if
you are going to become a successful personal
injury lawyer. Here are a few things to keep in
mind.
As a personal injury lawyer, you must always be
striving to become more knowledgeable and
successful in your field. If you are not constantly
striving to become better, you will lose clients as
they realize that you cannot compete with the
lawyers that the insurance companies hire.
Fortunately, there are many things that you can do to increase your knowledge and to stay competitive.
The first thing you have to realize though, is that you cannot simply read a little here and there when
you have time.
You have to immerse yourself in the industry news and you have to become familiar with new policies
and procedures right away. Falling behind is simply something that you cannot do if you plan to stay
competitive.
Usually, the insurance companies hire the best lawyers available. As a result, you can rest assured that
the insurance defense lawyer is not reading a little here and there when he or she has time.
If you do not try to keep up, he or she will win every case against you. You have to immerse yourself in
related knowledge if you are going to perform well in the field.
The next thing you will need to do is select good cases to pursue. This does not mean that you should
only pick cases that you know you can win.
Picking Your Cases
Many lawyers mistakenly pick only
the cases that they know they can
win. However, you will not truly be
successful if you always avoid taking
risks.
The risks you take will challenge you
and help you to develop and hone
more skills. In addition, it can be a lot
of fun to do something that you are
not sure you can do.
2. At the same time though, you will want to make sure that you select the cases that you take on wisely.
The third thing you will need to do is always investigate the facts.
Even when you feel like you have enough information for a particular case, it is always good to continue
striving to seek out more facts. Facts are critical to winning a case and if you do not have enough of
them, you will lose.
Besides, if you are a lawyer, finding facts and investigating should be a lot of fun. Most of the time in
personal injury cases, the facts will support your side of things.
As a result, the insurance companies tend to overlook facts whenever they can because they do not
support their side of things. You should continually be pursuing new facts if you are going to become a
successful personal injury lawyer.
The fourth thing you will want to make sure you do is file suit in every case possible. There will be a few
exceptions to this, but the general rule should be that you will file suit whenever you can.
Most of the time, insurance companies will not settle for your determined price unless they know you
will take them to court. Without this threat, they will not cave to your requests and your client’s needs.
As a result, if they do give in before you have fully given this threat, then you are not asking for enough
and your client could probably be awarded more. Of course, if you have a strict reputation for going to
court then you may need to take this fact into account as well.
No Cooperation
However, most insurance companies are not cooperative when
it comes to settling and you will have to fight to make sure you
client gets what he or she needs. As you follow this rule, you
should make it a rule to never settle unless the insurance
company knows that court is imminent.
The next thing you should make sure you do is give the
insurance company a firm deadline for settlement and let them
know that you will take them to court if they do not meet it.
Many insurance companies tend to like to take a long time to
come to a conclusion.
However, with a deadline that they know you will enforce, they
will be forced to stick to your time schedule instead of setting
their own. This will be important to your client and to you.
Your client will not have to fork out as much payment when all
is said and done and you will be able to provide service to more
clients so that you will receive a larger pay check. As you do
these things, you will be able to become a successful lawyer.
