As a resident of any city, including New York, a slip and fall accident can leave you with severe injuries. Worst case scenario, you may go through excruciating pain and sustain life-long health complications. For example, you may sustain slip and fall injuries like spinal cord injuries, fractured bones, and traumatic brain injuries, amongst others.
As a victim of a fall and slip accident, you are entitled to a legal claim for financial compensation. It is the responsibility of all property owners, both residential and commercial, to provide safe conditions for clients, guests, and visitors.
If a slip and fall accident occurred due to poor, dangerous, and unsafe public or private property conditions, then the negligent property owner is liable for damages. Bad conditions like poor lighting or wet floors are critical because you may be physically incapacitated, leading to lost wages and inability to work. You should get an experienced New York slip and fall attorney to help you get fair compensation for medical bills and the lost wages.
If you or your loved ones are slip and fall accident victims, consult Gregory Spektor’s law firm. We have exceptional and experienced lawyers that will help you get a fair compensation award to recover damages.
But, you should select a lawyer for maximum compensation. Below are the steps to follow to get the right personal injury attorney for slip and fall victims accident case.
Steps To Help You Get The Slip And Fall Lawyers
Making a slip and fall claim can be time-consuming, but it’s well worth it if you get the compensation you deserve.
Here are the steps to follow:
1) Know Your Case
Learn the basics of why you would need a lawyer in the first place to determine if a lawyer is correct for you. Different lawyers specialize in various areas of law. You have a personal injury claim if you were hurt due to someone else’s negligence. You wouldn’t engage a business attorney to represent you in a criminal matter.
Likewise, you don’t want to engage just any family member or acquaintance with a legal license unless they have personal injury expertise. Many individuals make the mistake of choosing someone they know or someone they know via a friend or family member, even if that person isn’t the lawyer for the task.
Dealing with an auto insurance claim is much different from corporate behemoths like Amazon and their insurers. In personal injury lawsuits, the type of accident is a crucial factor. If you were injured in a slip and fall at Amazon, you wouldn’t want to choose a lawyer handling only vehicle accident cases.
It’s also crucial to think about a lawyer’s familiarity with your sort of injury and the severity of it. Whether you have experienced a severe or catastrophic accident, make essential to ask your lawyer if they have handled cases similar to yours.
Practicing personal injury law doesn’t mean you have the skills or resources to undertake a broad range of personal injury cases, from a minor vehicle accident to a catastrophic 18-wheeler collision or a severe injury slip and fall claim. Many more prominent personal injury law firms have the resources and expertise to handle a wide range of claims. But, you must conduct thorough research on such a law firm before hiring them.
Finally, keep in mind that there are other options for pursuing compensation in personal injury situations. Insurance companies may pay certain claims, whereas others involve going to court. You want a lawyer who has handled claims with various insurance carriers and has litigated cases similar to yours and the injuries for which you’re pursuing a lawsuit.
2) Which Factors To Check For In A Lawyer
Because there are so many law firms that manage personal injury claims, check out the following factors that set the top personal injury lawyers apart from the rest:
Reputation & Brand Image
Lawyers who are well-liked, command a lot of respect in the community, and have a good reputation will frequently do better than those who have a bad reputation. A lawyer with a good reputation is more likely to be trustworthy and dedicated to your case.
With the internet at your disposal, you can’t afford excuses. Your research should start at the attorney’s website. Most websites contain information about the attorney or company, including a description of the individual or business, a list of all practice areas in which the attorney or firm routinely works, and other valuable information.
Furthermore, the website allows a potential customer to examine the business’s nature and determine whether or not the firm looks to be skilled in its field or able to handle your case. So, kindly conduct your research on your preferred candidate firms.
Trial Experience
One of the most significant and critical qualifications for a personal injury lawyer is trial experience. Novice lawyers may lack the expertise and knowledge of those practicing personal injury law for decades. Trials need a great deal of preparation and swift actions, and the only way an attorney can gain these skillsets is via actual trial experience.
As a result, a lawyer’s trial experience should be considered. While trial outcomes are an excellent indicator of strength, the volume of settlements a lawyer or business has secured is also a good indicator of strength.
Due to a slip and fall accident, lawyer’s capacity to successfully try matters. As a result, settlements and verdicts for fall accident victims are bigger. With this in mind, selecting an attorney who has a track record of successfully trying cases may be a massive help in both settling and winning at trial.
Track Record
In most cases, lawyers and firms that skip timelines, fail to keep clients posted, or otherwise behave unethically may face ethics complaints from their jurisdiction licensing authority.
Look for any complaints, restrictions, or disbarment on the lawyers you’re looking into on the state bar or licensing body’s website.
Communication
A New York Personal Injury lawyer must properly communicate with their clients and be available to them to be effective. Simple encounters are a superb approach to assess an attorney’s communication abilities.
In addition, the attorney’s website might be a vital sign of their communication abilities. It should be a red flag if the attorney’s website is difficult to navigate, read, or comprehend. Meeting or conversing on the phone with an attorney is also an excellent approach to assess the attorney’s communication abilities.
It is essential to ask yourself if the attorney could answer all of your questions and make you feel at ease with the answers provided. A lawyer with solid communication skills is more likely to convince a jury to believe the witnesses and evidence offered at trial or compel the judge to rule in their favor.
Finally, how many lines of communication the attorney gives you is an excellent measure of communication abilities. If they have various communication channels on their business card (such as a phone number and an email address), they will probably be available when required.
Availability & Accommodative
If severe injuries restrict you from visiting an attorney’s office, ask if you can have an attorney come to your home or hospital. Look for a company with legal representatives on-call throughout the day and week (24 hours per day).
3) Check Out The Firm’s Reviews
The best way to learn and collect evidence about a lawyer is from their previous clients. Any client that profoundly appreciates and values the contribution of their personal injury attorney tends to give testimonials. You’ll be able to size up your attorney by going over their former client’s testimonial videos.
Additionally, testimonials will enable you to determine;
- The firm’s approach and efficiency
- The firm’s former clients’ feelings about the firm’s approaches
Overall, you’ll know whether the firm or the lawyers are good or bad for you.
Moreover, you can check out online reviews from relevant sites. Several online review platforms can allow you to evaluate a firm’s former clients’ satisfaction. Below are examples of online reviews you can use to assess your preferred lawyer;
- Google lawyer reviews
- Avvo
- Martindale.com
- LegalMatch
- Lawyers.com etc
Testimonials and online reviews allow you to picture the experience you’ll get from your slip and fall lawyer.
But don’t let a couple of bad reviews make you lose a good lawyer. Some of the bad reviews can be biased, especially when they are from;
- Disgruntled employee
- Has scores to settle
- A competitor
One way of checking the veracity of negative online reviews is by tracking if the firm responded to them. Besides, note how the firm responds to posted reviews and determine if they correctly respond to the posts and client’s feelings.
4) Shortlist & Screen The Candidate Firms
After getting references from friends and family, doing a Google search, and looking through legal online directories to identify different attorneys, thoroughly examine each choice and reduce your selection down to a few top possibilities. In a nutshell, create a shortlist.
Contact each fall attorney and speak with their team about your issue, making sure to ask any questions you have about the lawyer, their staff, and your case in particular.
You should plan your questions to help you not forget them during the chat. As you talk about your fall injury and how the lawyer or firm can help you, here are things to keep in mind:
- Experience the firm has with fall cases similar to yours
- Specialty or general service offered by the law firm
- Fall case assignment process and the officer that will handle your slip and fall case
- The probable success rate on the fall injury claim
- Duration for resolving the fall case
Ensure the lawyer’s staff get as much information regarding your case as possible to provide the best possible replies to your inquiries. It is advantageous to gather information and paperwork before meeting to share specifics regarding your resulting injuries.
If at all possible, have relevant documents and information on hand. Medical records, information on witnesses to the accident, police reports, and other pertinent material can all aid in making the dialogue as fruitful as possible.
Scheduling or having an appointment with your law firm to talk through your case will give you a sense as to whether or not they will be a suitable fit for you. Suppose the legal firm representative speaks quickly, glosses over critical subjects, or attempts to hurry you off the phone throughout the conversation. In that case, this might be a hint of what to expect all across your case.
A personal injury attorney who takes the time to clearly explain your rights and alternatives while also demonstrating empathy and patience is more likely to offer you timely, individualized counsel.
Choosing the appropriate lawyer is both a personal and a vital decision. Ensure that your initial sessions are entirely free of charge and that you are not obligated to hire a lawyer or company.
Ascertain that the legal team has spent time answering your questions and assessing your prospective claim. Don’t allow someone to waste your time by telling you what you want to hear; instead, seek an objective appraisal of your situation.
5) Understand The Legal Fees
Perhaps it is the most obvious factor to consider when choosing an attorney is the cost. You must know the cost of litigation upfront. Although some attorneys charge by the hour, most comfortable trial attorneys work on a contingency fee basis, which allows a client to pay the attorney out of the proceeds of the trial.
As a result, the greater the recovery, the more money both parties (client and attorney) make. The most acceptable contingency costs are below 45%, and anything above that is considered unreasonable. A contingency fee should be clear and straightforward to comprehend. The expenses resulting from other charges (such as engaging an expert) should also be deducted from the recovery.
Both you and the lawyer will benefit from contingency fee agreements. You do not need to be concerned about the cost of hiring an attorney. You can file an insurance claim even if you don’t have the financial means to do so.
Also, because your attorney is only paid if you win, your interests are aligned with your attorney’s, indicating that your attorney is confident in your case. Because there is nothing in it, lawyers are hesitant to take terrible cases on contingency.
6) Hire The Best Fit Firm Or Slip And Fall Lawyer
Assume you love your initial chat with the first legal firm and are confident in their qualifications, expertise, and general manner. If you’re convinced that they’re the proper fit for you after they’ve answered all of your questions and handled all of your worries, go ahead and hire them.
You may, on the other hand, have unanswered questions or worries. If you don’t go forward right away, make a list of any issues or queries you have so you can follow up with them and have a fruitful conversation.
In case you didn’t have a great first talk, keep in mind that conversations sometimes get off track, and legal experts, like anybody else, may not be able to provide you with every detail or answer every question. That doesn’t mean they don’t care or aren’t informed; it might just be an oversight.
Finally, if you have a strong feeling about law practice, follow your research and intuition and proceed with counsel.
You will sign a contract with a law firm that agrees to take your case. The contract should include the representation conditions and the fee structure you negotiated before. If you follow the procedures above, you should limit your selections to the personal injury lawyer you feel is the most excellent fit for you and your case.
An experienced attorney will embark on securing you the compensation you deserve after you sign the agreement. Read the agreement carefully and feel free to ask any concerns concerning the contract’s provisions. Never sign a contract that you don’t completely understand or feel comfortable. A fall lawyer will be able to guide you appropriately because of their experience in handling these slip and fall cases.
Schedule a Free Consultation For Your Slip And Fall Accident Case
Accidents involving slips and falls are among the most prevalent non-fatal injuries seen in emergency departments. If you have been injured in a slip and fall accident and are thinking of filing a legal claim, you should speak with an attorney at the Spektor Law Group right away.
Kindly ensure you do this as soon as possible since there are time constraints after which one cannot file a personal injury. Contact us immediately for a free consultation if you wish to claim compensation for an slip and fall accident.
You’ll be able to achieve the following when you work with Spektor Law Group:
- Prompt Communication
- Extensive Trial Experience
- Help you file a legal claim within the Statute of limitations
- Help you prove the property owner’s negligence
- Boost your chance of getting a better outcome
In a slip and fall lawsuit, it’s critical to have legal counsel. A lawyer will provide you with all of the facts you want and assist you in determining the best course of action for your case. Here are a few things an attorney might undertake to help you get the compensation you deserve.
You should verify that your case has validity by checking a few legal concerns. To win a lawsuit, your injuries must be the direct consequence of a slip and fall accident on the defendant’s premises, for example.
You must also show that the defendant was the one who caused your accident. An experienced lawyer in fall accidents will prove negligence by the defendant.
Because of our high client satisfaction, we have impeccable reviews, ratings, and experience at Gregory Spektor Law Group. Contact us now for a free consultation and case evaluation with one of our lawyers.
