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Hiring the Best Personal Injury Lawyer

Choosing the Best Personal Injury Lawyer for Your Case

The following article is the personal opinion of trial lawyer Aaron DeShaw.  It is a compiled review of personal injury lawyer quality based upon several legal research studies as well as extensive experience practicing law for over 25 years, DeShaw's running the leading legal publishing company Trial Guides (including as publisher for the American Association for Justice), consulting with other law firms over the past 20 years, and co-founding the Legal AI demand letter company Settlement Intelligence.  It is intended as a public service to injured people seeking the best lawyer for their personal injury case. It is solely the personal opinion of trial lawyer Aaron DeShaw, and does not suggest where our law firm falls in the broad range of personal injury law firms discussed.

Select your Personal Injury Lawyer Carefully

When you are injured, one of the most important factors in determining the outcome of your personal injury case is your selection of lawyer.  The differences in the quality of personal injury lawyers is seldom discussed, even in the legal literature.  But, your choice of lawyer is very important to the value of your legal case. With five different lawyers of varying quality, your personal injury case may have five very different outcomes.

The basis of the opinions in this article come from multiple studies by the Insurance Research Council, multiple studies from the U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics, the pioneering work of Professor Nora Freeman Engstrom at Stanford Law School, my oversight of litigation practices in the United States through my ownership and operation of the legal publisher Trial Guides (used by tens of thousands of personal injury lawyers who litigate and try cases) which published for the American Association of Justice for several years, and my experience in co-founding the AI Demand Letter company Settlement Intelligence.  The reality is, few lawyers will like what is said in this article, but it is important for the public to understand the impact of their choice of lawyers.

According to Stanford Law Professor Engstrom “there are real differences in attorney quality, and the choice a client makes has broad repercussions for the type of representation she will receive and even, studies suggest, the size of the recovery she will ultimately obtain.  Choosing a lawyer wisely is thus extremely important.  It is also - especially for clients without lawyers in their social and familial networks – extremely difficult.  In the market for personal legal services, there is a startling lack of objective, verifiable information available concerning an attorney’s malpractice and disciplinary history and record of failure or success. In fact, credible information about lawyers performance is difficult (more often impossible) to find, no matter one’s resources or resolve.”  This is especially the case when someone is injured and compromised in their ability to make a wise decision. 

There is a wide spectrum of personal injury lawyer quality and practice type.  Given my extensive background as a trial lawyer and as the owner of legal businesses over the past 20+ years, I'm proposing a five tier system to help injured people select the lawyer that is best for the facts of their case.  For the majority of personal injury cases such as auto accident and simple premises liability cases (often called "slip and fall" type injuries) the lawyers could be divided up into the following five tiers:

  1. Settlement Mill
  2. Lower Tier
  3. Middle Tier
  4. Upper Tier
  5. Elite Tier

We will discuss each of these below.

Additionally, there are important subspecialties in personal injury law that you need to know about because these practices are quite different and you should not be hiring a general personal injury lawyer for these types of cases:

  1. Brain Injury Cases;
  2. Low Vehicle Damage / "minor impact" / "MIST" cases;
  3. Truck Crash Cases;
  4. Medical Malpractice;
  5. Nursing Home;
  6. Product Liability / Defective Product cases;
  7. Workers Compensation;
  8. Aviation Law;
  9. Maritime;
  10. Federal Employers Liability Act cases (including Railroad injuries);
  11. Insurance Bad Faith;
  12. Multi District Litigation (defective drugs, medical devices, etc.)
  13. Vaccine injury cases;
  14. Other subspecialties of personal injury law.

Remember that just because a lawyer advertises for these cases does not mean they have experience in these types of cases, or that they have achieved great outcomes handling cases of that variety.

Personal injury lawyers and their characteristics are on a continuum.  But, to ease with your understanding of the characteristics of certain lawyers, I have created a system of five tiers of personal injury plaintiff’s lawyers – settlement mill, high volume / lower tier, middle tier, upper tier and elite tier.  In general, you will find that this system is reasonably helpful for understanding that not all personal injury lawyers are equal in quality.[2] 

Contingent fee lawyers, are a unique service in a free market economy.  They cost exactly the same, by percentage, regardless of their quality.  Generally, they charge 33% for a pre-litigation settlement, regardless of their intelligence, skill level, or reputation.[3]  If you have a serious injury case, you have the choice to hire a top quality lawyer work on your case instead of a really bad one, all for the same percentage of your case.   

It should be said that this five tier model of lawyer quality is a very simplistic method of conveying the idea that different qualities of lawyers are available to injured people depending upon their legal needs and personal objectives.  

Why hire a lawyer for your personal injury case?

In 1995, Allstate Insurance implemented a plan called the Claims Core Process Redesign (CCPR), part of which included the implementation of the MIST claims handling system, and Colossus at Allstate.  While insurance defenses have always existed, Allstate pioneered the modern concept of Deny, Delay, Defend.  CCPR was so financially successful for Allstate (reducing claim payments by billions of dollars) that much of the insurance industry has followed its methodology since then.  One of the hallmarks of CCPR was to settle cases very quickly before the injured party could seek legal counsel.[4]

Just before Allstate created the CCPR system, the Insurance Research Council had released a study showing that injured people who were not represented by a lawyer, who had smaller claims estimated at being worth $1,000 to $15,000, settled claims on average for $3,464.  By comparison, injured people who were represented by a lawyer on these smaller claims, settled claims on average for $7,450.   For claims settled above $15,000, the difference was even greater.  

Early in its development of CCPR, Allstate and its consultant McKinsey & Co. found a similar outcome.  In response, an early version of the Allstate CCPR manual states “Represented claims settle for 2-3 times more than unrepresented claims.”[5]  As Allstate and McKinsey continued researching its case outcomes during the development of CCPR, they came to realize that the average outcome for cases with a lawyer was closer to 5x the outcome of non-represented people.  The primary part of the reason for this difference is that lawyers recognize that a permanent injury will create ongoing personal and financial impacts, which non-represented people do not know how to claim.  Allstate intentionally set its claim system, Colossus, to consistently and intentionally undervalue every settlement offer and forced their adjusters to make offers based upon the value set by Colossus.  So, every settlement offer was less than Allstate knew the claims to be worth including to its own policyholders. Only a small percentage of personal injury lawyers will go to trial and get the full value of a case.  As a result of this finding, Allstate worked to reduce attorney representation in cases to reduce claim payments.

Injured people hire lawyers for personal injury claims for a number of reasons.  In our practice, most clients seek legal representation because an insurance adjustor has been abusive either in terms of cutting off PIP/MedPay treatment benefits while the person is still injured, an insurance doctor has cut them off from necessary treatment, or because of an insurance company’s relentless pressure to settle their personal injury case when they still feel injured and vulnerable. 

But, in the long term, a lawyer’s ability to stop insurance company harassment is of limited importance compared to preparing the client for the long-term personal and financial consequences of their injuries if they are permanent.  So, the real question of lawyer quality comes down to a lawyer’s ability to get injured people reasonable compensation for their injuries.  With this in mind, we consider the five types of personal injury lawyers.

The 5 Types of Personal Injury Lawyers

1. Settlement Mills

According to at Stanford Law School Professor Nora Freeman Engstrom, settlement mills are “high-volume personal injury law practices that aggressively advertise and mass produce the resolution of claims, typically with little client interaction and without initiating lawsuits, much less taking claims to trial.”[8] "Settlement Mills" settle cases for small amounts of money and don’t want to go to trial.  Their case quality on average is poor to moderate, and their practices survive on a high volume of cases.  

There are two excellent articles on settlement mills by Stanford Professor Freeman Engstrom called Sunlight and Settlement Mills,[6] and Run-of-the-Mill Justice.[7]   According to Professor Freeman Engstrom, the ten characteristics of settlement mills are:

  1. High-volume personal injury practices
  2. Engage in aggressive advertising from which they obtain a high proportion of their clients
  3. Epitomize “entrepreneurial legal practices,"
  4. Take few—if any—cases to trial.
  5. Charge tiered contingency fees 
  6. Do not engage in rigorous case screening and thus primarily represent victims with low-dollar claims;
  7. Do not prioritize meaningful attorney-client interaction (sometimes the lawyer never meets the client);
  8. Incentivize settlements via mandatory quotas for their legal staff, or by offering negotiators awards or fee-based compensation;
  9. Resolve cases quickly, usually within two-to-eight months of the injury; and 
  10. Rarely file lawsuits.”[9] 

Professor Freeman Engstrom suggests that the first four of these ten factors are necessary to qualify as a settlement mill, and that the remaining six represent traits that are probative.  Some of these last six traits are common with the highest quality firms, because, as an example, almost all plaintiff firms charge tiered contingency fees.

Here are some of the more practical things you will see in settlement mills, as compared to lawyers from different tiers:

  1. These law firms focus on settlement, not litigation.
  2. Case outcome can be lower than the average for people without representation. Case value generally varies between a few hundred dollars and $500,000 (these lawyers occasionally get serious injury cases because of their prominent TV, internet or billboard advertising);[10]
  3. Legal work product quality outside the court is non-existent to fair;
  4. Trial outcome record is nonexistent, or poor to fair;
  5. The lawyer has no clue whether he / she represents the client;
  6. The firm accepts 200+ clients per lawyer at a time, with rapid turnover, resulting in each lawyer handling 400-500 cases per year (in Englstrom’s articles she features settlement mill law firms that settle 1000s of cases per year);
  7. In some firms, the demand letters are created by a legal assistant, paralegal or settlement coordinator (although more recently they are outsourcing demand letters to low quality AI demand letter companies that miss many of the injuries, or are written by former insurance claim adjusters);
  8. These lawyers have a poor knowledge of the medical conditions affecting their client base;
  9. These lawyers exhibit little desire to improve their legal skills or medical knowledge;
  10. These lawyers do not want to “rock the boat” with insurers in order to get more money for a particular client;
  11. The firm has a poor reputation among other plaintiff’s lawyers;
  12. According to Engstrom, clients served by settlement mills are “comparatively uneducated, underprivileged and disproportionately belong to historically disadvantaged ethnic and racial minorities”;.[11]
  13. Many of these lawyers talk well and make potential clients believe they are going to “win the lottery” with their case, then deliver small settlements and excuses;
  14. These lawyers appear to be ultra-aggressive on advertisements, and often in front of potential clients, to give potential clients the impression that they will aggressively advocate for them, when in truth they are simply going to process the claim just like the several thousand before it;
  15. These lawyers use television, billboards, Google PPC ads, and social media advertising to attract clients;
  16. These lawyers (or more likely staff) often call to ask physician offices to “cut” their bills because the settlement was insufficient to cover all of the expenses;
  17. These lawyers rarely obtain peer-recognition for excellence (except in "pay to play" rating agencies or associations where they can buy a ranking.)

The insurers know who these lawyers are, far better than you.  And with firms like this, insurers know there is such a large volume of claims, they can save a large amount of money by doing small things to decrease claim value.  They know there is almost no possibility of going to trial, because the lawyers have little or no experience going to trial.  

An interesting new development in settlement mills is that some states now allow non-lawyers to own law firms.  This has resulted in private equity companies, some of which also run lawsuit loan companies, legal "lead" marketing agencies and Legal AI companies to own law firms.  These private equity companies are great at making money, but what they aren't great at is practicing personal injury law. (An example of these venture capital and private equity companies lack of knowledge is their massive financial investments in Legal AI companies run by people who have no idea about the practice of law, who demonstrate no concern about providing poor quality services that damage injured people's claims.) What is important to these companies is making the most money on each case.  If there is less profit in investing costs into your case for necessary expert witnesses and paying a lawyer to litigate for years to get you the best outcome in a trial, that probably isn't going to happen.

Insurers track personal injury lawyers and personal injury law firms by tax ID number and know the firm's settlement and litigation history.  More recently, insurance claim software databases like Premonition track motion and trial outcomes across insurance companies so that the insurer knows about the outcomes of the law firm with all other insurers.  Premonition is directly connected to the insurance software that determines your settlement offer.  So, lawyer quality directly impacts your settlement offer.

A lawyer's failure to file lawsuits or go to trial is an important factor in an insurer making a settlement offer.  One of the interview subjects for Professor Engstrom’s papers noted his firm had tried 10-15 cases per year out of 3,000 claims they handled.[12]  Another firm settled thousands of claims per year without ever conducting a single trial in a ten-year period.[13]  The sheer volume of clients wouldn’t allow for them to properly prepare for a trial.  While lawyers in your state may not handle this number of cases, it is the concepts of high volume, heavy advertising, and failing to try cases that you should be considering.  While settlement mills were rare in Oregon until recently, lawyer licensing laws recently have allowed a flood of large national settlement mills to move into Oregon and Washington.  

In states with mandatory Personal Injury Protect or Medpay such as Oregon, insurers will delay paying PIP/Medpay to the doctors on cases handled by these firms, and quickly IME their clients.  Then, the insurer will offer a fraction of the claim value because they know the firm either won’t go to trial on the patient’s behalf, or won’t file litigation at all.  In states without mandatory PIP/Medpay (such as Washington), doctors are stuck with accepting a small percentage of the treatment bills as settlement for treatment provided to the patient because these law firms won't get enough money to pay for the treatment you were provided.

Some of these settlement lawyers will withdraw from cases if settlement offers aren’t made.  This is a problem we are seeing as more settlement mill law firms move into Oregon and Washington. This is in part because the law firm doesn't litigate at all, or they don't understand how to litigate with Oregon's unusual "trial by ambush" method of litigation, which is why Oregonians need an Oregon based lawyer. 

Or, in some cases the injured person refuse to accept the low offers, because the lawyer won’t go to trial.  When the statute of limitations date comes close and no acceptable settlement has been offered, or the client refuses to accept minimal money for a more serious injury, the client is dismissed and left without a lawyer to file their case.  We've seen this happen over and over again and few if any lawyers will accept a client who is within a few months of the statute of limitations because there isn't sufficient time to investigate a case to file the lawsuit.

Don’t be confused – lawyers that own settlement mills make a lot of money.  They will look like a successful lawyer.  They will be on TV, on billboards, buy top ranking positions on Google, and look great in their social media ads.  The bottom tier of lawyers may be comprised of a very small percentage of law firms in a state, but they handle a disproportionately large percentage of personal injury cases.  In some cases, the owner of these firms make more than lawyers in the Elite tier.  But, that doesn’t mean that you will get a good outcome on your personal injury case.

Seriously injured people should not hire a settlement mill for their personal injury case 

Professor Engstrom’s position is that most people don’t know there is a difference between lawyers. In other cases, injured people (particularly those with traumatic brain injuries or under the influence of pharmaceuticals) may be susceptible to the ads on TV, billboards, a web site or a social media ad.  Others don’t initially understand the severity of their injuries, or that they will never work again.  With 52% of injured people who hire an attorney, hiring their attorney in the first week after the injury,[14] many of these people don’t initially realize that the selection of the lawyer may influence the rest of their life.  It is in these situations that hiring a settlement mill may be most damaging. 

According to Professor Engstrom, the biggest problem is when people with serious injury cases end up at this type of personal injury law firm because they believe the firm with the biggest law firm or the highest ranking Google rating is the best lawyer. “Some clients with serious injuries sign up for settlement mills’ services, and these clients are, for a host of reasons, almost undoubtedly short-changed.”[15]   While these firms could be generating large referral fees from Elite tier lawyers that they could refer serious injury cases to, Engstrom notes these firms refer very few, if any, cases out to trial counsel.[16]  Instead, she documents a financial disincentive at the settlement mills to refer large cases to trial counsel, because the settlement mill’s negotiators often get paid based upon how many cases, or the value of cases, they settle in a month.[17]  They can settle a $2,000,000 case for $300,000 and meet their quota for the month.  Their rationale is “Why refer the case, even if the firm could make $120,000 more in attorney fees by making a referral, if it is going to take a year or two longer to get the money?”  But, forget about the financial loss to the law firm.  The most important loss is that the injured client comes out with $1.7 million less.  And for people who deserve that kind of compensation, there is a serious injury involved and they are going to need that extra money to survive.

Defenders of the settlement mills, suggest that because the demographic most often served by the settlement mills would otherwise go unserved for their injuries, these firms promote access to compensation for the disadvantaged members of society.  There are some cases that no other firm would take, and these firms do get some compensation for clients who otherwise could get nothing.  Unfortunately, little concern is paid to the individual client and the impact of the actual injuries on the client. Sources at these firms report: “There’s too many clients and you can’t really give them individual attention.”[18] 

Why do the insurers cooperate with these firms in settling cases that they know will never go to trial?  Professor Engstrom suggests that “cooperation is profitable” - insurers profit by their relationships with these firms through the significant savings they get by settling claims inexpensively.  But, the savings come at your detriment.

Distinguishing settlement mills merely by their size or the fact they advertise is somewhat tricky.  Two other types of firms may take on this look without being settlement mills.

100s to 1000s of Client Reviews

Does a law firm having hundreds or thousands of client reviews a good characteristic?  If you have a low value case, this may be a good sign.  If you have a serious injury, a high number of Google ratings is probably a bad sign.  Why?

Given that Settlement Mills and High Volume law firms have a very high volume of cases, they will have more client reviews on Google, Facebook, Super Lawyers, Avvo, or other platforms.  What the clients say is important. But the fact that these firms have thousands more Google ratings does not make the lawyer better than an Elite lawyer in terms of case outcomes for the clients.  Thousands of clients who do not have a permanent injury and get a $5,000 outcome might be happy with that settlement and leave a 5 star review. But, if you have a serious injury case, you probably want a firm with a low volume of cases, and as a result they will have far fewer Google reviews.  Again, look at what the client is saying and look at the law firm's case outcomes on their web site or on a site like Super Lawyers. 

Concerning trends with Settlement Mills

According to several studies by the Insurance Research Council over 98% of cases nationally settling before a lawsuit is filed. According to several multi-year studies by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 98% of the cases filed settle before a verdict.  In Oregon, far lower than 1% go to trial.  

Key Factors in a Settlement Offer, and the shortcomings of Settlement Mills

The settlement of claims really comes down to three things;

  1. The collection of all of the client's medical records
  2. Getting Supporting Expert Reports
  3. How the law firm writes its "demand letters" to the insurance company summarizing your claim.

Collecting Medical Records

Recently, we've seen settlement mills move to using outside record collection companies, some of which claim they are obtaining the records by using AI.  The promise of these Legal AI companies is that by using AI these companies can collect all of a client's medical records in a case within one day - a process which normally takes months if done in the traditional way due to clinic and health care systems delaying their sending of the records. This is the largest delay in handling personal injury cases, and for a settlement mill this keeps them from settling as quickly as possible.  

We wanted to test this to see how one of these companies would do in terms of obtaining all of the records in a large severe brain injury case we were handling where there were tens of thousands of records.  We chose a high profile Legal AI company that claimed to be backed by a household name in technology as well as other venture capital companies.  To test their ability to get all of this clients records in one day as promised, we provided a full list of providers - approximately 50 different clinics and hospitals.  The company's response was shocking - they ignored the list and simply obtained what they could get through major health systems.  Around 70% of the client's providers records were not provided on the first date, or on any date thereafter.  They admitted to not even looking at our list of providers.  

It became clear is that this AI medical record retrieval company only collect records from large hospital systems.  In interviewing the owners of these companies it becomes clear that they are from the tech industry and not the legal industry.  They believe that all clinics provide their records to the major hospital electronic medical record systems.  But what they also said was instructive - that most of the law firms they work with don't care if they get all of the medical recoreds - what they get within one day is enough. If the medical records aren't in a major health care system's EMR, they simply do not collect the records and send them to the law firm as the complete records.  The response from the CEO of the company was that doing this was "good enough for 98% of our clients."  Meaning, for many personal injury firms, not getting most of the health care records was acceptable to settle a case.  As a lawyer, this is shocking.  It destroys the value of your personal injury case.

For any good lawyer who practices personal injury law, the problem should be obvious - most of the records will be missing.  The result is that none of the injuries, reports of symptoms, treatment, and bills from these providers will be included in determining the settlement offer.  According to this vendor, this doesn't stop law firms who want to move cases from injury to settlement as quickly as possible.  But, getting the full value of a claim depends on all of the health care records and bills being provided to the insurer for evaluation.

Getting Supporting Expert Reports

Insurers require confirmation of certain claims by an expert witness. In some case it is a policy and procedure of an insurance company that without that verification from a doctor or other expert witness, the insurance adjuster can't give you any money for that part of your claim.  If you don't have the appropriate verification of a specific injury or loss, the insurer won't give that injury or loss any value.  A common problem is doctors who fail to provide a full list of injury diagnoses or injury codes (called ICD codes).  Sometimes it is verification of the need for a surgery. In brain injury cases it is often a neuropsychological evaluation.  In wage loss claims a vocational rehabilitation evaluation must be done.  With future medical costs you need a life care plan report, often involving interviews of your doctors.  Without these you will not get a full and fair settlement offer in your case.

The problem is, all of this costs money.  Often several thousands of dollars per report.  Few injured people have the money to pay for these costs, particularly those people who were already having problems making ends meet financially before someone injured you. The funding of these evaluations usually falls on a lawyer in what are often called advanced client costs.  While it is very difficult for plaintiff firms to finance these advanced client costs due to the need to constantly fund the costs of many cases (due to a combination of being repeatedly taxed on these costs and getting 0% interest often for years during the case), the only way to get a fair evaluation of your claim is to have the evaluations.  But, because of the financial impact of taxes and no interest, some law firms will not advance funds on client cases.  This is a larger issue at settlement mills and large volume law firms than in the upper tier law firms.  This is a serious problem for the clients because again, without you getting the evaluations you can't get a fair value on your case.  The only other option is high interest litigation loans where the loan company buys an interest in your case. But, as we've been seening, insurance company settlement agreements now are inserting language into releases that prohibit settlement if a litigation loan company owns part of your claim.  So, unfortunately, you are damaging the value of your case by hiring a firm that won't properly fund preliminary evaluations necessary to the successful settlement of your case, let alone the massive costs of expert witnesses if you need to go to trial due to a lowball offer.

AI Demand Letters that insert unsubstantiated claims

Settlement Mills that want to "churn and burn" on personal injury cases as quickly as possible have now started outsourcing their demand letters to a company largely owned by a hedge fund that inserts unsubstantiated financial losses and "comparable verdicts."  I discuss the problems with this in a post on Settlement Intelligence.  The bottom line is these settlement mill personal injury firms will enter in unsubstantiated claims that will discredit your case during the evaluation by the insurance company.  As a completely separate issue, the demand letters almost entirely fail to address the way that insurance companies evaluate claims, thereby ensuring that your case won't get a fair settlement offer.

AI can help in creating better demand letters if they are done right by people who understand the process.  But, right now lawyers are faced with a choice of either doing things fast and wrong, or doing them slower and correctly.  For many settlement mills, they are choosing poor quality outcomes for their clients in order to speed up settlements.

In summary, many unrepresented people could get a better outcome without representation than by hiring a settlement mill to settle their case.  People who are most seriously injured are the ones who will be hurt most by hiring a high volume law firm that settles all of their cases.

High Volume Personal Injury Law Firms

There are some very large law firms in the country that are not settlement mills.  These include large firms that have some moderate to excellent quality trial lawyers mixed in with a large support staff for settling cases before litigation. Sometimes these lawyers go to trial to obtain small to large verdicts for their clients.   These firms often have both settlement (often called "pre-lit" divisions) and litigation divisions within the firm, settling smaller cases, and feeding the largest cases up to well respected trial lawyers.  This is a much better system than having a settlement mill handling and settling cases of all severities.  It is easiest to determine whether a large firm is a mill or not, by checking a firm’s web page, or other internet resources to determine the trial history of the firm’s named / leading partners.  If you see a list of trial verdicts, or otherwise high outcomes, it becomes less likely that this is a settlement mill.

There is always room in any marketplace for goods or services that cater to the greatest population.  The biggest companies in the world such as Walmart, McDonalds, and UnitedHealth succeed because they cater to the most people possible. The purpose of large volume personal injury law firms is similar - cater to the most people to provide legal representation.  Is it where you want to take a legal case where your life depends on the outcome?  That is up to you.  Products and services provided at mass volume is not what everyone wants, particularly if your future depends upon quality.

While true settlement mills have been less common in Oregon and Washington until recently (with a flood of out of state law firms), there have been some high volume law firms in cities like Salem, Portland, Tacoma and Seattle.  

A good example of a high volume firm that now does litigation is the nation's largest personal injury firm, Morgan & Morgan.  The law firm's owner, John Morgan, is revered as a marketing genius in the legal profession, and he has achieved significant financial success both as a law firm owner and in his other businesses.  

Several years ago, Morgan & Morgan implemented a practice of requiring its lawyers to go to trial.  The effect is that the firm more than doubled the average settlement value of its cases in locations like Florida, California, Georgia and nearly every other state.  In light of this finding, applied to over 100,000 personal injury cases, this outcome demonstrates that trial experience makes a significant impact on settlement offers.  But, at the time, the average case outcome of the firm was still below $10,000 per case.  Still this is much higher than the average case outcome of many settlement mills.

As John Morgan notes in his book You Can't Teach Vision; "There are lawyers in the cities we practice in who haven’t been to trial in years and years and years. Some have never been to trial. While the general public doesn’t know who they are, the insurance companies certainly do."  Which confirms the point of this article.  Insurers keep statistics on lawyers and they make settlement offers based upon which lawyers they know will go to trial and get large verdicts.

According to an article in Forbes, Morgan & Morgan has over 1000 lawyers throughout the United States and handles hundred's of thousands of cases at a time.  The firm has a full time marketing division with hundreds of marketers, and spends $350 million dollars per year in marketing alone.  As this and other large national firms move into Oregon and Washington they will bring a massive internet presence, Google ranking, thousands of Google reviews, and a list of verdicts not obtained in Oregon or Washington that will look very appealing.  (Oregon has the 7th lowest case outcomes in the United States based on studies from the Insurance Research Council, so it is important to not compare verdicts obtained in other states to Oregon, or Washington where verdicts are often 1/100th of the value of verdicts in California or Florida.)  It will be very difficult for the high volume personal injury law firms from Oregon and Washington to compete.

Not every large national firm tries as many cases.  But, again for people with serious losses and who need to litigate in Oregon or Washington, the large national firms still have very little experience as their move into these states is still relatively new.  Injured people should look at the experience of the lawyer who will actually be working on their case to decide if that is the best lawyer for their case.

Legal Referral Networks and Case Lead Companies

Additionally, there are some law firms, which are primarily professional referral networks for other law firms.  These firms, which are some of the heaviest legal advertisers in the country, do not handle cases themselves.  The best example historically is Sokolove Law, but there are now many law firms nationally that simply take calls and refer the cases out to a group of other law firms.  

Some online listings for legal services are not actually law firms at all, but "case lead" companies that sell potential client information to law firms. You want to be careful to find out if the company you are contacting is actually a law firm or not, and whether they are licensed to practice law in your state.

Since the referring firms engaged in mass marketing do not handle cases themselves, they would not be construed as a settlement mill as discussed above.  These firms make their money on referral fees from the lawyers who ultimately handle these cases (if it is a real law firm) or get paid for the lead.  The client does not pay anything additional, and it is a viable way for clients with larger cases to get to the firms that handle the larger and more complex cases.  

But, you want to know who you are getting as a lawyer before you sign a fee agreement.  Make sure you are actually hiring a lawyer, and the qualifications of the lawyer who will actually be handling your case.

Middle Tier Personal Injury Law Firms

The middle tier of lawyers contains the majority of personal injury lawyers.  There is a broad continuum of lawyer quality in this range.  In general, the following are hallmarks of middle tier lawyers:

  1. The lawyer is reasonably selective about cases, turning down 10-70% of cases;
  2. Firm size is variable from solo practitioner to multiple lawyers.
  3. Work product varies from moderately better than bottom tier lawyers to substantially better;
  4. Trial outcome record is fair, with some moderately high verdicts;
  5. Much of the communication on a case is either typed or dictated by a lawyer;
  6. Case value generally varies between $5,000 and $500,000;
  7. The length of the representation is dependent upon whether a reasonable offer is made to the client, or whether litigation is needed;
  8. While pre-litigation settlements are favored by this group, these lawyers will go to trial;
  9. The firm accepts between 25-250 clients per lawyer at a time (almost always with supporting paralegals and legal staff to assist);
  10. Lawyers have a mild to advanced level of knowledge of the medical conditions affecting their client base;
  11. The lawyers exhibit a mild to moderate desire to improve their legal skills;
  12. These lawyers often (but not always) struggle in their attempts to improve their medical understanding of conditions affecting their client base;
  13. While these lawyers are open to making change, they are occasionally slow to do so, due to time or money constraints;
  14. These are the lawyers most likely to “rock the boat” in terms of bad faith actions against insurance companies, battles over IMEs, and strong advocacy in getting injured people treatment.
  15. These lawyers often are respected by other plaintiff’s lawyers, members of legal societies, and the public, but are treated in a lukewarm fashion by insurance companies and defense lawyers;
  16. Many of these lawyers face very turbulent swings in income which impact their ability to finance larger cases in the way they would like.
  17. These lawyers are generally more realistic with clients about their expectations for case outcome dependent upon the facts of the case (which they will admit can not be done until some time after the initial interview when all of the treatment records are collected and the full ramifications of the injuries can be taken into effect);
  18. These lawyers generally appreciate that a cooperative style is more effective than the ultra-aggressive stance, but will aggressively advocate for their client if necessary;
  19. Treatment of alternative health care providers varies widely in this group from lawyers who are friendly to Complementary / Alternative Medicine (“CAM”) providers, and recommend it to clients, to those who advise clients to not seek alternative therapies;
  20. Advertising in this group is much less than settlement mills and large volume personal injury law firms;
  21. These lawyers can face financial shortcomings in going to trial, or have other personal financial needs (family, overhead, etc.) which prevents them from using the money generated by other cases to improve their trial success;
  22. These lawyers call for reduction in physician bills less often, depending upon the lawyers rate of success;
  23. These lawyers are presently the most likely informed about the existence of insurance claim software and are interested in how it works either for the purpose of achieving better outcomes for their cases, or to institute lawsuits against insurance carriers;
  24. These lawyers rarely personally take medical malpractice cases.
  25. Given that this group of lawyers sees a higher volume of cases than Upper Tier or Elite lawyers, they will have more client reviews on Google, Facebook, Super Lawyers, Avvo, or other platforms

How do you know where these middle tier lawyers rate in comparison to each other? A lot of the legal rating methods are nothing more than a glorified popularity contest.  A lawyer’s ranking shouldn’t depend on how many lawyers they know, or how many lawyers know them (or like them.) 

Similarly, trial lawyer association membership doesn’t mean much, although membership in the American Association for Justice does tend to demonstrate a higher level of commitment to the lawyer’s professional life.  Bar association or trial lawyer association leadership positions alone don’t mean anything in regard to client outcomes.  These are volunteer political positions, not positions associated with superior trial performance. While some of the best lawyers do accept political positions, you need to look beyond this.

Avvo, is a legal rating company that more heavily weighs verdicts and settlements, ethics, as well as client reviews.  In some ways, Avvo can be a helpful source for determining lawyer quality.  Since the Avvo score can be influenced by the number of written contributions to the Avvo web site, it is also important to determine if the high score is achieved due to the lawyers answering questions on the Avvo web site, rather than the outcome of their client’s cases, national and international lectures, and his/her written materials for lawyers. 

A Lawyer's Commitment to Excellence

There is a notable difference between high volume firms and the middle and upper tiers of personal injury lawyer.  Here are some additional insights;

There are approximately 1.3 million lawyers in the United States.  Most of them work on issues like business formation, contracts, wills, divorce and a wide variety of topics outside personal injury law.

There are approximately 150,000 plaintiff personal injury lawyers in the United States.   

Of those only approximately 15,000-18,000 actively practicing lawyers are members of the American Association for Justice.  I know this because I was the publisher for AAJ for several years through Trial Guides.  The organization now known as the American Association for Justice is the national trade associaiton for plaintiff lawyers.  While some lawyers do not belong to AAJ for personal reasons (our firm included) involvement tends to suggest that lawyers are more engaged in learning.  

Trial Guides publishes nearly all of the books for personal injury lawyers on improving their settlement and trial skills for the past 20 years.  Of the 150,000 plaintiff lawyers in the United States, only 8,000-10,000 lawyers per year purchase a Trial Guides book to improve their clients' case outcomes.  So, only 1 in 15 personal injury lawyers can be bothered to read a book on how to improve their clients outcomes in personal injury cases.  You will find nearly all of these lawyers in the middle, upper and elite tier.  In fact, Trial Guides most significant customers are almost always upper tier and elite tier lawyers.  Since our law firm is owned by the owner of Trial Guides, we get access to every book before it is released to the legal community.

Upper Tier Personal Injury Lawyers

The Upper Tier lawyers represent approximately 5% of Personal Injury lawyers in a state.  Here are some characteristics of these lawyers:

  1. The lawyer is very selective about cases, turning down 70-99+% of cases;
  2. Firm size is variable, but generally these firms are smaller;
  3. Work product outside of court varies from moderate to excellent;
  4. Their skills in court are of higher quality;
  5. They spend a good deal of time reading books or watching videos on litigation methods, and attend national continuing education events by leading lawyers, or are speaking at those events themselves.
  6. These lawyers rarely accept cases that they expect to be worth less than $100,000, and most of the cases they take range from a value of $250,000 to several million dollars;
  7. These lawyers will litigate every case they accept if a high settlement offer is not made.
  8. These lawyers generally only settle cases short of trial or hearing where the defendant has no assets, and the full “policy limit” of the insurance policy is offered;
  9. As a result, the cases handled by these lawyers tend to go on for years when the insurers don’t make reasonable settlement offers.  These lawyers don’t back down.
  10. These lawyers tend to take cases that have a large number of health care providers and thousands of pages of documents, largely comprised of medical records and other expert reports.
  11. The firm accepts between 1-100 clients per lawyer, at a time, but usually on the lower side;
  12. These lawyers are particularly selective about the personality of the client.
  13. These lawyers generally do not represent people who view themselves as being “victimized.”  Rather they represent individuals who have been hurt due to someone else’s negligence, and who have attempted to return to their normal lifestyle with hardship and residual impairment;
  14. These lawyers have a moderate to advanced level of knowledge of the medical conditions affecting their clients;
  15. The lawyers are looked upon as leaders in their field and teach others their legal skills, while at the same time diligently working to perfect their own individual trial technique;
  16. These lawyers do not imitate other lawyers techniques, or personalities, as they realize that the individuality of each lawyer and the inherent credibility that comes with it is essential to a lawyer’s success;
  17. These lawyers are open to making changes in their trial methods, if it will improve their ability to represent their clients;
  18. These lawyers often are unknown by physicians, and members of the public.  They are respected by knowledgeable plaintiff’s lawyers, and sometimes insurers and defense counsel as well;
  19. These lawyers generally appreciate that a cooperative style is more effective than the ultra-aggressive stance, but will aggressively advocate for their client throughout the litigation process as required;
  20. These lawyers tend to be much less interested in issues regarding vehicle damage, diminished vehicle value, PIP/MedPay terminations, etc. and instead concentrate on the end outcome of the bodily injury case.
  21. These lawyers know their cases intimately when they get to the hearing and trial;
  22. These lawyers are very well prepared for trial
  23. These lawyers are often very courteous to jury members and the court staff while in trial;
  24. These lawyers almost never take low vehicle damage cases, unless they are considered a specialist in this area.  A lawyer who has obtained a trial verdict of $500,000 or more in a collision with less than $1,000 in vehicle damage is very rare;
  25. These lawyers get most of their cases from middle tier lawyers who want them to litigate their big cases.  In some cases they get referrals from knowledgeable physicians, or through social contacts;
  26. This category of lawyer is primarily using internet pages for potential clients and other lawyers, although most of these lawyers tend to be a bit older than the middle tier lawyers who are younger and more knowledgeable about the marketing benefits of web sites and social media.
  27. Many of these lawyers have no idea about insurance claim software, and most don’t care because they want to litigate the cases, which means that the software programs will have no bearing on the outcome of the case;
  28. These lawyers often invest in excess of $50,000 of their own money on the right case;
  29. These lawyers generally reserve large amounts of money to fund cases;
  30. Some top tier personal injury lawyers also are successful in medical malpractice cases;
  31. These attorneys highly value honesty both personally and from their clients and the experts they work with.  So, in the event you get the chance to work with such a lawyer, you should be clear and honest with them about the potential pitfalls you see in the case to see whether they can address those issues.

While it may be difficult to know who these lawyers are, you can find them in one of the following ways:

  1. SuperLawyers is a nationwide ranking of the Top 5% (or less) of lawyers in a state, in many fields of law.   Candidates are selected through a four-step process.  Lawyers cannot nominate themselves, and campaigning for inclusion is prohibited.  You can’t pay your way in either.

The short list of plaintiff personal injury lawyers often represents less than 5% of all personal injury lawyers in a region.

Is this ranking another popularity contest?  In some locations yes, although not nearly as susceptible to that problem as many other rankings. 

Please note that there is the main Super Lawyers list, and a list of the “Rising Stars” which are the lawyers under 40, or with less than 10 years in practice that are showing signs of greatness.  But, the quality of the lawyers on both lists can be quite different.  Here are some other indicators of these lawyers:

  1. A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, American Board of Trial Advocates, or International College of Trial Lawyers, membership in which is by nomination only and is very limited.  The problem with these organization is that it also allows entry to defense lawyers, so you need to ensure you have found a plaintiff’s lawyer from the list.
  2. Best Lawyers in America, can be helpful, although not always consistently so for personal injury lawyers.
  3. The law firm's site can be helpful.  Many high end lawyers use their internet site as a place to list their more notable cases.  Any lawyer with a long list of good trial verdicts in your state is likely a good candidate if you have a serious case.
  4. That said, these lawyers tend to advertise very little.  And, some of their web sites are really bad.  The reason they don’t advertise much is because most of their cases come through referrals from other lawyers.
  5. In terms of web site claims on verdicts and settlements, you need to ensure that the ads refer to specific cases having high outcomes, rather than a popular phrase used by settlement mill firms such as “millions of dollars in cases settled.” If you see a firm advertising that they have several different $1 million plus settlements or trial verdicts, it is likely that this is a firm that will put the money behind a case it will need to result in the best outcome for you.

Elite Tier Personal Injury Lawyers

The Elite Tier lawyers are a subset of the Top 5% of lawyers in the top tier.  The Elite Tier represent less than the top 1% of personal injury lawyers in a state, and these lawyers are often, but not always found in major cities.  

Elite Tier lawyers should be considered any time a person sustains a catastrophic injury, someone dies, or in cases where someone with a high income is not able to work in the same way after a crash.   

The following are hallmarks of the elite tier lawyers:

  1. The lawyer is very selective about cases, turning down 90-99+% of cases;
  2. Firm size is variable, but some of these firms appear to be taking a smaller approach with only one to four lawyers working in some of these firms, and a small staff;
  3. The firm engages in extensive pre-trial investigation and workup;
  4. Has one or more trial verdicts of $1,000,000 or more as well as other settlements of more than $1,000,000 per case (this is highly variable based upon their state of practice);
  5. These lawyers rarely take cases below $1,000,000, and most of the cases they take range from a value of $1,000,000 to billions.
  6. These lawyers will litigate every case they accept if a high settlement offer is not made, and tend to reject the idea of alternative dispute resolution methods such as settlement conferences, mediation and arbitration.
  7. These lawyers generally only settle cases short of trial or hearing where the policy limit is clearly set out, the defendant has no assets, and the full “policy limit” of the insurance policy is offered;
  8. The firm's lawyers accept between 1-15 clients per lawyer at a time;
  9. These lawyers have a moderate to advanced level of knowledge of the medical conditions affecting their client base;
  10. The lawyers often know the medical conditions involved in their cases as well as the treating doctors;
  11. The lawyers are looked upon as leaders in their field and increasingly are teaching others their legal skills, while at the same time diligently working to perfect their own individual legal technique;
  12. These lawyers often are unknown by physicians, and members of the public.  They are revered by knowledgeable plaintiff’s lawyers, and sometimes feared by insurance companies, corporations, and professionally respected by defense lawyers;
  13. These lawyers generally appreciate that a cooperative style is more effective than the ultra-aggressive stance, but will aggressively advocate for their client throughout the litigation process as required;
  14. These lawyers know their cases intimately;
  15. These lawyers are often very courteous to jury members, the court staff, and the judge while in trial;
  16. These lawyers are very well prepared for trial;
  17. These lawyers often have minimal advertising beyond a web site, and get most of their cases from middle tier or upper tier lawyers who want them to litigate their biggest cases;
  18. Some of these lawyers are increasingly moving to creating large national firms in which they are referred the largest cases.
  19. Some of these lawyers have in excess of 50 trials completed during their legal careers;
  20. These lawyers often invest in excess of $100,000 of their own money on the right case, and some over $500,000;
  21. These lawyers reserve large amounts of money to fund cases;
  22. Many top tier PI lawyers also handle medical malpractice cases, or other varieties of large value litigation;
  23. These attorneys take a long time (usually several years) to resolve cases;
  24. These attorneys hold themselves to the highest standards of honesty and credibility with people, including jurors and judges.

While it may be difficult to know who these lawyers are, you can find them in one of the following ways:

    1. A member of The Inner Circle of Advocates which only provides membership to the Top 100 plaintiff lawyers in the country.  The Inner Circle is an invite-only group that is very selective.  Membership requires at least 50 complete trials and at least one million dollar trial verdict.  Some Inner Circle members have tens and sometimes hundreds of million dollar verdicts.  If you call an Inner Circle member about a solid case, and they are not interested because it is not big enough, they may refer you to another high quality firm who will.  If it is small to moderate value case, don’t bother calling.  One caveat is that historically there have been some exceptional trial lawyers who have been excluded from the Inner Circle so it is not a definitive list of the best lawyers in each state.
    2. Many of the lawyer authors at legal publisher Trial Guides are at the best personal injury lawyers in the United States.  Most of the members of the Inner Circle of Advocates who have books have published with Trial Guides, and in addition the company publishes for some exceptional lawyers with the largest trial verdicts in America, who have not been inducted into the Inner Circle.
    3. A Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers, or International Society of Barristers, membership in which is by nomination only and is very limited.  The problem with these organization is that it also allows entry to defense lawyers, so you need to ensure you have found a plaintiff’s lawyer.  But, there are a few great lawyers in these organizations that are not in the Inner Circle.
    4. Lawyers that have obtained Top 10 Verdicts in America one or more times.  There are a few lawyers that have obtained these massive Top 10 verdicts several times. Also, lawyers who have obtained more than one Top 100 verdict in a year.

Finding the right lawyer for your personal injury case

Each variety of lawyer may have a particular benefit that best suits a particular type of person or case.  For example, someone who wants a quick settlement, but who’s injuries are not very severe, may want a high volume or middle tier lawyer, not a top tier lawyer. 

By contrast, someone who is seriously injured with a large loss of income, a large insurance policy, and who needs a maximized settlement in order to pay for health care for the rest of their life, needs an upper tier or elite tier personal injury lawyer. 

If someone has an IME or PIP / Med-Pay dispute going on, and doesn’t have major injuries, the best lawyer for that situation is probably a middle tier lawyer. 

If the crash was a low speed impact with major injuries, you need to know who the best lawyers in your state are for that kind of case.  There are even niche specialists in the country who deal almost exclusively with one variety of case, like trucking cases, post-traumatic fibromyalgia cases, RSD/CRPS cases, brain injury cases, or neurodegenerative conditions.  A law firm's web page may provide further information discussing the types of education and expertise that lawyers have in specific types of personal injury cases.  

What to do when you hired the wrong personal injury lawyer

Changing lawyers in a personal injury case

We are often called by injured people who are already represented to see if they can change lawyers.  Most often these are people who sustained the types of serious injuries we are best known for handling; traumatic brain injury cases, amputations and other severe injuries.  

We always ask the person to get permission from their lawyer before we will speak to them.  Most of the time we reassure the injured person that their lawyer is doing a good job.  Despite us reassuring them, some clients decide to change lawyers.

Three good reasons for changing personal injury lawyers:

  1. The lawyer truly doesn’t understand the injuries involved in the case, and makes little or no effort to learn about them;
  2. The lawyer isn’t capable of fully funding the litigation by hiring necessary experts to evaluate the person's claim; or
  3. The offers made are not sufficient and the lawyer doesn’t want to go to trial.

Lack of direct communication with the main lawyer on their case, while it may be upsetting to the client, is generally not a great reason to change lawyers.  Some of the best lawyers in the country are in back to back trials, and in some cases nationally known lawyers are brought in only a few weeks before trial.  One generation ago, some of the greatest trial lawyers in American history (such as the legendary Moe Levine) obtained record setting verdicts for clients they had never met.  While the great trial lawyers of this generation take a much more personable approach, their staff still are the ones who most often communicate with their clients, while trial lawyers are in trial, writing legal briefs, arguing motions, reading the thousands of pages of records in a file, obtaining the right experts, reading medical literature, writing detailed demand letters, keeping up to date with new litigation methods, consulting with jury consultants, involved with focus groups, and creating the litigation strategy for a client's trial.

With some patients hiring lawyers quickly after injury, some people realize later that they hired the wrong lawyer for their case.  There are two ways for these people to make a positive change for their case outcome:

1. Firing your lawyer: 

Every legal fee agreement should allow for some way out of the contingent fee agreement contract.  It will usually require the client to pay:

  1. The costs the first lawyer paid out on their case; and
  2. Attorney fees, either in the form of a) an hourly fee for the work already performed (if no offer has been made); or b) the appropriate contingent fee on whatever offers have been made.

That’s reasonable if the attorney has worked on a case.  The client agreed to those terms, and if the attorney worked on the case, or obtained some offer, they deserve to be paid for their work.

Sometimes the next lawyer will pay for the “costs” for the client to the first law firm.  In addition, the second lawyer can often negotiate to pay for the legal fees earned by the first lawyer, once the final settlement or verdict is obtained.  If the switch has been a good choice by the injured person, and they are in fact “upgrading” their lawyer, the switch will still result in a good outcome both for the second lawyer and the client, despite paying the first lawyer for their work.[19]

Dependent upon the terms of the contingent fee agreement, a person can terminate the first lawyer’s representation with a letter asking the lawyer to withdraw from the case, or asking to terminate the relationship and pay the appropriate costs and fees.  If the first lawyer wishes to discuss the client’s dissatisfaction, the client should be honest about their concerns. 

2. Ask for co-counsel or trial counsel:

In this situation, the client could ask their lawyer to bring in another lawyer for their case.  This allows the original lawyer to get a percentage on the cases that will then be handled either with both lawyers, or only by the second lawyer.  This usually doesn’t result in higher legal fees for the client, as the two law firms split the original contingent fee percentage.  In cases where the client hires a better or more experienced lawyer, the first lawyer will often make more on the referral fees than they would have made handling the case on their own.  Most importantly, the client who is seriously injured often gets a much better outcome, because they have a better lawyer handling their case.

There may be disadvantages to changing lawyers during a case (and it can be a really bad sign about the client and their claim if it happens more than once during a case.)  Insurers and even judges can look at the case negatively if the client changes lawyers more than once.  But, if there is a good reason to change lawyers, the outcome will often be much better. 

If you truly dislike your lawyer, do not trust they understand your case, or otherwise do not want to work with them, then you have the right to change with the understanding that you will have to pay your first lawyer for their time.  As noted above, many lawyers (including our firm) will not talk to a person who is already represented by another lawyer. 

We strongly suggest you do not fire your lawyer without any guarantee that the new lawyer will accept their case.   Do not misrepresent that another firm has accepted you when that is not true or you may seriously jeopardize your legal case.  But, if your lawyer is truly the wrong type of lawyer to handle your case, and you are permanently injured, you should consider another lawyer that can successfully complete your case.

Find the Best Personal Injury Lawyer for Your Case

Hopefully this article has provided important information about finding the right type of lawyer for your personal injury case.  If you believe our Portland personal injury law firm is the best for you, please feel free to contact us online or call (503) 227-1233 for a free consultation.  If we do not believe we are the right law firm for your case, we will refer you to a list of law firms that we believe are better suited to your type of personal injury case.  Our goal is to get you to the best law firm for your specific type of personal injury case.

References

[1] Engstrom N., Sunlight and Settlement Mills, New York University Law Review, Vol. 86, Number 4, Oct. 2011, pp 805-884.  See also, Frank A. Sloan et al.  Suing for Medical Malpractice 201, 216 (1993) (finding that medical malpractice specialist lawyers negotiated settlements that were nearly twice as large as the sums obtained by non-specialists in similar cases.)

[2] In the state where I primarily practice, Oregon, an earlier version of ORPC 7.1(a)(3) prohibited lawyers from personally comparing themselves to other lawyers.  While the wording has changed, I am not making any such statements comparing myself or my firm to any other lawyer or law firm.  I am not making any statements about where I fit in this tier system at all.  Instead, I am providing readers with concepts, and independent resources from which you can do your own research about lawyers.

[3] For most lawyers, the contingency fee percentage goes up to 40% either upon filing for litigation or arbitration, or it goes up near trial.  Higher percentages are used by some firms, for cases that are riskier or have higher financial investment and investigation costs.

[4] I strongly recommend you read David Berardinelli’s book From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves, the Dark Side of Insurance, and Delay, Deny, Defend by Jay Feinman for more on how Allstate changed auto insurance.

[5] This explains why it is of financial net benefit to injured parties to hire a lawyer in most cases.  Even with the contingent fee for the lawyer removed in smaller cases, the injured party nets more money on average for an injury based upon this IRC study. 

[6] Engstrom N., Sunlight and Settlement Mills, New York University Law Review, Vol. 86, Number 4, Oct. 2011, pp 805-884. 

[7] Engstrom N., Run-of-the-Mill Justice, The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Vol. 22:1485.

[8] Nicole Freeman Engstrom, Run-of-the-Mill Justice, The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Vol. 22:1486.

[9] See CARROLL SERON, THE BUSINESS OF PRACTICING LAW: THE WORK LIVES OF SOLO AND SMALL-FIRM ATTORNEYS 107-09, 141, 147 (1996) (describing “entrepreneurial legal practices”).

[10] See Engstrom, Run-of-the-Mill Justice at p.1497, noting a mill that “often settled for as little as $2,000.”

[11] Nicole Freeman Engstrom, Run-of-the-Mill Justice, The Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics, Vol. 22:1516.  See also John Fabian Witt, Bureaucratic Legalism, American Style: Private Bureaucratic Legalism and the Governance of the Tort System, 56 DEPAUL L. REV. 261, 278-79 (2007); Gillian K. Hadfield, The Price of Law: How the Market for Lawyers Distorts the Justice System, 98 MICH. L. REV. 953, 968-69 (1999).

[12] While the rate of cases going to trial is already incredibly low – approximately 2% and falling – Engstrom says that settlement mills file as few as 0.2% of their cases.

[13] Engstrom N., Sunlight and Settlement Mills, New York University Law Review, Vol. 86, Number 4, Oct. 2011, pp 818. 

[14] Insurance Research Council, Injuries in Auto Accidents:  An Analysis of Auto Insurance Claims (1999) at 37. (52% of auto accident claimants who retained counsel did so within one week of their accident.

[15] Id.

[16] Engstrom N., Sunlight and Settlement Mills, New York University Law Review, Vol. 86, Number 4, Oct. 2011, pp 864. 

[17] Id at 685.

[18] Engstrom N., Sunlight and Settlement Mills, New York University Law Review, Vol. 86, Number 4, Oct. 2011, p. 810. 

[19] This said, there are no guarantees in litigation, and things could go badly with any lawyer, depending upon the facts, judicial rulings, and the jury.

About the
Author

Aaron DeShaw is a personal injury lawyer at DeShaw Trial Lawyers, a law firm representing injured people with serious injuries including brain injuries and other catastrophic injuries. He has individually, and in association with other law firms, obtained over $1 Billion for his clients. Learn more about Aaron and the Firm.

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