Hi. I’m, John Medler, personal injury lawyer with The Medler Law Firm – Personal Injury & Accident Attorneys. Today I’d like to talk to you a little bit about what to do if you’re not happy with your personal injury lawyer. Unfortunately, it happens every once in a while. You get a personal injury lawyer who’s just not very good. They’re not returning your phone calls and they’re not doing the kind of job that you expect them to do for you. So how do you get out of this? Three simple steps…
The first thing that you need to do is to send an email or a letter to your attorney in writing, telling him that his services are no longer required and that terminated. That’s all you need to say. Once you do that, the lawyer’s services are terminated and he has to stop working for you.
The second thing you want to do is ask that attorney whether he’s going to put a lien on your file. Lien. L-I-E-N. What does that mean? If the attorney’s been only working for you for a short period of time, you probably don’t have to worry about it, but what if your lawyer has been working on your case for over a year? He’s probably entitled to some money for the work that he’s done for you so far.
So what might happen is your lawyer might say, “I’m putting a lien on your case.” Meaning that when you settle your case with your new lawyer at the end, you owe me a little bit of that money. So you need to find out if your old lawyer is going to put a lien on your case because that may affect whether your new lawyer wants to even take your case. So the second thing that you need to do is to find out from the lawyer that you’re terminating, whether he’s going to assert a lien on your case, and if so, what amount he is asserting.
The third thing that you need to do is to demand from your old personal injury lawyer that he or she gives you the file. Believe it or not, the file that’s sitting in the lawyer’s office is your property and you’re entitled to it. So demand that that lawyer give you everything that’s in the file.
Once you’ve taken those three steps, then call a new lawyer like the experienced Orange County personal injury lawyers at The Medler Law Firm – Personal Injury & Accident Attorneys. Hopefully your new lawyer will do a better job handling your case. For more information about personal injury, check out our website at www.MedlerLawFirm.com.
