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Two Pershing Square 2300 Main Street, Suite 170 Kansas City MO 64108Two Pershing Square
2300 Main Street, Suite 170
Kansas City, MO 64108
Directions
Telephone: (816) 221-6600
Toll Free: 1 (877) 284-6600
Fax: (816) 221-6612
Have you suffered a serious personal injury or wrongful death? Are you in need of a personal injury attorney?
In the Kansas City area, you literally have hundreds of personal injury lawyers to choose from. How do you know who is right for you?
Use these questions to help you in your search.
Most personal injury attorneys charge for their services on a contingent fee basis. That simply means that there is no legal fee unless there is a monetary recovery on your behalf. The typical contingency fee is 33%; however, it can range from 25% to 40%.
The firm you choose should never charge an upfront fee.
However, expenses may be handled differently.
Specifically, you want to ask about the firm’s practice on expenses or costs advanced if your case is lost.
When looking for a personal injury lawyer, you want to make sure his or her primary focus is personal injury law. You don’t want to hire someone who practices general law, family law or criminal law. Although someone who is a general practitioner may do a little bit of everything, including personal injury, you need someone who is not just familiar with personal injury laws, but someone who knows these laws backward and forward.
A lawyer specializing in personal injuries will be able to get you the best results.
Some firms may provide you with an overall combined years of experience. While this might look and sound good, you want to know more specifically about the lawyers and legal team you will be working with.
Experience can be a key factor so be sure to ask how long a lawyer and his or her firm has been practicing personal injury law. A seasoned lawyer with several years of experience means he or she has seen and handled a variety of cases, allowing him or her to apply what has already been learned and experienced to your case.
Be sure to ask if the lawyer has trial experience with cases similar to yours as well. And also ask for the lawyer’s results.
Keep in mind, just because a lawyer specializes in personal injury law does not mean he or she is skilled or successful at negotiating settlements or obtaining courtroom victories.
Knowing whether other law firms refer cases to the firm you’re considering means:
Lawsuits involving serious or catastrophic personal injuries or wrongful death can take a considerable amount of time and, quite frankly, monetary resources from the law firm you choose to represent you. Often, in complicated cases, expert testimony may be needed from medical doctors or other professionals, accident reconstruction professionals and more.
Since these expenses are typically funded by the law firm, you want to make sure they have not just the time and staff, but the monetary resources needed to bring these experts to bear in your case.
Many firms use a team approach having different lawyers, paralegals and associates handle different aspects of your case.
You want to know:
Be sure to ask how the team functions and how often you will receive updates about the status of your case.
Every case is different so no attorney should give you an exact time frame to this question. However, he or she should be able to give you a general estimate based on how long other similar cases have taken.
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Past results afford no guarantee of future results and each case is different and is judged on its own merits. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.