If you need a slip and fall attorney near Rockville, Maryland but don’t know who to hire, consider asking the following questions…
- How may personal injury jury trials have you done in the last 5 years?
- What is the highest verdict vs the pre-trial settlement offer that you have won at a jury trial?
You need to ask these questions because in a personal injury case your attorney needs to be skilled at playing two roles, a negotiator and then, if necessary, a fighter; and these roles are closely related. Having said that, insurance companies track who your attorney is and what jury trials they have won, including how much versus the settlement the insurance company offered. While an attorney needs to be a negotiator first because your case is essentially a negotiation before it reaches trial, the insurance company is mostly if not solely concerned with the attorneys who can essentially beat the settlement offers at trial. Those are the guys that the insurance companies are afraid of. Hence when those attorneys (the ones that beat the settlement offers at trial) call the insurance companies the insurance companies are much more likely to pay attention and pay more money than they would an attorney who they know will never take your case to trial.
The second role, that of a fighter (for your case) is the most important skill for any personal injury attorney and the hardest to obtain, because it is what allows them to be an effective negotiator. Think about it, the more intimidating/skilled an opponent is in a negotiation, the more willing you will be to settle your dispute/case with them.
You rarely see this topic covered on other attorney’s websites and the reason why is simple… They don’t want to answer these questions because they actually do not do jury trials. As some attorneys view it, jury trials are too time consuming, not cost effective (it is so much easier to just settle for a lower amount) and labor intensive, so they settle for whatever is offered. For other attorneys the fear of losing at trial overwhelms them so they settle without hesitation. While many times settling a case is the right thing to do it should not be the thing you do 100% of the time.
On the other hand, when it comes to the Law Office of David Wasser you don’t even need to ask whether we do Jury trials and whether we beat the settlement offers at trial because the answer is the first thing you see when you visit our website!