Lawyer in Nashville for a Serious Injury

If you suffered an injury because of an accident or an act of negligence, you might wonder if your injury qualifies as serious. Although there is not a formal definition of what defines a serious injury, the American judicial system has adopted a broad meaning that allows victims to seek a settlement from an insurance company and/or monetary damages by filing a civil lawsuit.

Serious injuries can cause long-term disabilities, but they do not always have to be considered permanent injuries. A prolonged rehabilitation process is typically required for an injury to be defined as serious. Another way to define a serious injury is that a victim cannot work for a lengthy amount of time.

Here are a few examples of what constitutes a serious injury:

•       Brain trauma
•       Spinal cord damage that results in partial or total paralysis
•       Loss of an arm or a leg
•       Loss of hearing or vision
•       Permanent damage to one or more organs
•       Severe burns that cause disfiguration

Remember that you do not have to suffer from a serious injury to need the legal expertise of a Nashville personal injury attorney. The personal injury lawyers at Morgan & Morgan help clients receive just compensation for injuries that eventually heal. For example, we represent clients that suffered from one or more fractures recover monetary damages for the time they missed from work.

Before the Internet took off during the first decade of the current millennium, victims of accidents and acts of negligence let their fingers do the walking by searching in the Yellow Pages for a lawyer. Although the old-school way of finding an attorney has faded, you still can use a couple of old-school methods to find the best personal injury lawyer in Nashville.

Ask a Lawyer

Just because you do not know a personal injury attorney in Nashville does not mean you cannot find a good one. If you know a lawyer, ask if the attorney knows a personal injury lawyer who handles your type of personal injury case. Most lawyers maintain professional relationships with attorneys who specialize in a different type of law practice. A referral from an attorney should help you find a personal injury lawyer who handles your type of personal injury case.

Network with the People You Know

You might not know a personal injury lawyer, but maybe a friend, family member, or professional peer can recommend one for you. Word of mouth advertising remains an effective strategy for finding qualified legal counsel. Even if your personal contacts do not know a personal injury attorney, maybe one of them can recommend a lawyer who knows a personal injury lawyer.

Tennessee Bar Association

Every state bar association provides an attorney referral service. You call a number and then describe the type of attorney that you need. Most state bar associations offer a find an attorney feature on their website that allows you to tap into a large database of personal injury lawyers that practice law in Nashville, Tennessee. Access the Tennessee Bar Association lawyer database to conduct research on the personal injury lawyers working in greater Nashville.

Online Lawyer Directory

You should use an online attorney directory more as a tool to confirm what you discovered during the research process. Since lawyers advertise their legal services on these types of sites, you have to remember that advertising legal services does not mean an attorney is good at representing clients in personal injury cases.

Just because you receive a recommendation from a trusted friend or family member does not mean your search for a personal injury lawyer has ended. In fact, your search is just getting started. You should consider several factors before agreeing to hire a Nashville personal injury lawyer.

Experience

You can expect to hear a lot about experience during your search for an attorney to represent you in a serious injury claim. “Our firm has more than 20 years of experience” looks good on paper, but what do the more than 20 years of experience represent? Is it more than 20 years of delivering mediocre results for clients or more than 20 years of getting clients what they deserve for suffering from serious injuries?

The most important metric that you should consider when choosing a personal injury lawyer in Nashville concerns the results an attorney or a law firm delivers for clients. Morgan & Morgan consistently achieves just compensation for our clients that exceeds the pre-trial offer made by the defendant’s attorney.

How Does the Attorney Interact with You?

Victims of accidents or acts of negligence suffer much more than physical pain. The trauma of going through what happens before, during, and after a serious injury incident can trigger several different mental and emotional issues. The attorney that you hire for your serious injury case must possess empathy for the legal relationship to work. At Morgan & Morgan, we understand the fear and anxiety that many of our clients deal with after suffering from a serious injury.

We interact with our clients by following a compassionate approach, while remaining committed to getting our clients just compensation.

How Does an Attorney Communicate with You?

You can expect to have several email and phone conversations with a Nashville personal injury lawyer before you meet for a free case evaluation. Any attorney on your shortlist must return emails, phone calls, and text messages promptly. If you have to wait more than a few hours to hear back from a lawyer, you should consider scratching that attorney’s name off your shortlist of candidates. During the free case evaluation, you have the opportunity to determine how well the lawyer sitting across from you communicates with clients.

Who Will Be Your Legal Counsel?

Some law firms like to pull the legal version of bait and switch. A senior member of the personal injury law team meets with a client for a free case evaluation. However, when the legal process starts, the client is represented by a lawyer who has considerably less experience than the experience compiled by the senior attorney. One of the first questions you should ask during the free case evaluation is “Will you be representing me throughout the entire legal process.”

No Disciplinary Action

One of the advantages of accessing the Tennessee Bar Association website is you can determine whether any of the attorneys under consideration has received disciplinary action. A single slap on the wrist is not a reason to disregard a personal injury lawyer on your shortlist. Several disciplinary actions made against a personal injury lawyer should raise a red flag. The personal injury attorneys at Morgan & Morgan are proud of our exceptional record of following the legal guidelines established by Tennessee law.

How Does the Attorney Charge Clients?

Personal injury lawyers charge by the hour or on a contingency fee basis. Paying an attorney by the hour can quickly rack up a legal bill that exceeds $1,000. You want to hire a personal injury lawyer who charges on a contingency fee basis, which means your lawyer gets paid when you get paid. Another factor to consider is the percentage a lawyer takes out of a settlement or a civil judgment. The standard contingency fee for serious injury cases is between 20 percent and 40 percent. What your lawyer charges depends on the complexity of your case.

Client Reviews

You can go to the Morgan & Morgan website to read the positive feedback our clients have left us online. We use the feedback left directly on our site, as well as the reviews posted on sites such as Yelp and Google. Online reviews can tell you a lot about the legal expertise and communication skills of an attorney. You want to consider a personal injury lawyer only if the attorney has received dozens of positive online reviews.

Many of our clients come to a free case evaluation unsure about which attorney to hire for their serious injury case. During your free case evaluation with a lawyer from Morgan & Morgan, you should be able to discover why we are the leading personal injury law firm in the United States. Recovering from a serious injury caused by an accident or an act of negligence should be your only concern. Leave handling the legal process up to the highly-rated team of personal injury attorneys at Morgan & Morgan.

Schedule a free case evaluation today to start on the road to getting you just compensation for your serious injury.