A guide from The Ledger Law Firm
How to hire a personal injury lawyer
You will probably hire an injury lawyer once, in a bad week, with no practice at it. This is the checklist we would want a member of our own family to have.
The guide
Six reads, in the order you need them
How to read the ads, check a license, get ready for the call, ask the questions, understand the fee and read the agreement.
- 01Read the advertisingWhat a State Bar certification means, what it does not, and how to weigh ranks, awards and results.Read it
- 02Check the licenseFind the lawyer in the State Bar’s own records and see whether there is public discipline.Read it
- 03Get ready for the first callWhat to gather, and why none of it has to be complete.Read it
- 04Ask the questionsTen of them, each with a line on why it matters.Read it
- 05Understand the fee and the costsThey are two different bills. How they differ, and what the written agreement must say.Read it
- 06Read the agreement at homeA checklist for the page you are asked to sign.Read it
How a case with the firm is paid for
The firm works on a contingency fee: the fee is a percentage of what is recovered. If there is no recovery, you owe no attorney fee, but you may still be responsible for court costs and case expenses.
Free case evaluation.
The firm
Meet some of the firm’s attorneys
These are some of the firm’s attorneys. The who we are page says which of them is licensed where.
Read this with that in mind
Who wrote this, and what it does not do
Lawyer.co is attorney advertising by The Ledger Law Firm, whose office is at 5160 Birch Street, Suite 200, Newport Beach, CA 92660. The lawyer who answers for what it says is Emery Brett Ledger.
We are a law firm and we would like you to call us. So read this the way you would read anything a business writes about choosing a business. Use every page of it to hire a different lawyer if that is who you pick.
Where a page states a rule, it names the statute or the court rule, links to the government text and shows the day we read it. Where a page gives advice, it says that it is advice. The pages that state rules cover California and Washington. Other states have their own rules and their own bar, and the guide says where that matters.
It does not tell you whether you have a case, what a case is worth, or how long you have to act. Those depend on facts only a lawyer who has your records can weigh. See who we are for the firm and its attorneys.