Selecting a Michigan Personal Injury Attorney – Part 5

Watch Selecting a Michigan Personal Injury Attorney – Part 1 

The last area that I’d like to talk to you about in terms of questions to ask any lawyer that you’re thinking of hiring is the issue of lawyer referral.

You should know that the majority of cases that we handle come to us by way of lawyer referral. Now why is that important to you? It’s important to you because if a lawyer is going to send us a case, they know that in Michigan, its ethical and every personal injury lawyer does this. We pay a percentage of our recovery, percentage of our fee, not your portion but of our fee to the lawyer that sends us the case.

So common sense will tell you, if lawyers are sending us their cases, they can send their cases to anyone in the state of Michigan or outside the state of Michigan. The reason they are sending their cases to us is that they know that they get a percentage of our fee after we get a jury verdict or settlement on your behalf.  It doesn’t cost you anything. So it’s a confidence issue. You should know that the vast majority of our cases come to us from lawyers of all types. I actually get quite a few referrals from lawyers who I’ve actually had cases against in the past. I consider that to be a very high compliment.

The majority of our cases come to us from lawyers in the state of Michigan and outside of the state of Michigan who obviously must feel that their best chances of getting a good referral fee is by sending it to us. But again, it doesn’t cost you anything that comes out of our fee which is generally one-third of the recovery. So that is a very good common sense question to ask a lawyer, where do you get your cases? If the vast majority of their cases come from a billboard, it tells you one thing. If the vast majority of cases come from other lawyers and the community who know them and who know the competition, that tells you something else, doesn’t it?

So thank you very much and if you follow these few questions that we’ve talked about, you’re going to end up with a competent and good lawyer. Hopefully it’s us.