What actually happens when you pick up the phone and call an injury lawyer after an accident? How do you know if you need a lawyer or if they’ll even take the case? In this episode of our Road to Recovery series, Clarke walks listeners through the real intake process, step by step.
Find out how our team evaluates cases, the questions you’ll be asked, and why sometimes the best advice is, “You don’t need a lawyer right now but call us back if anything changes.” He also breaks down how insurance companies move immediately to protect their own interests, why their investigators are far from neutral, and why injured people should never assume the system is working in their favor.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
📞 The First Call: What happens when you contact a law firm and why intake matters.
👮 Professional Intake Team: Investigators with law enforcement backgrounds gather deeper details.
⚖️ Do You Even Need a Lawyer?: Why Clarke’s team often gives advice without taking the case.
🏃 Insurance Moves Fast: Claims vans, investigators, and why they start immediately.
🧭 When Representation Begins: Why acting quickly protects evidence and strengthens your case.
Featured Keyword & Other Tags
personal injury attorney, legal preparation, insurance adjusters, accident claims, medical bills, liability, case strategy, maximize settlement, legal confidence
Client Links
Learn more about how Speaks Law Firm can help you: https://www.speakslaw.com/
Schedule your FREE case review: https://www.speakslaw.com/our-attorney/r-clarke-speaks/#contactFormTarget
Find us on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3R40YMP
Transcript (Click To Read)
What Really Happens When You Call a Lawyer After an Accident?
Clark: I’m Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to the verdict.
Carson Grace Toomer: Well, I’m gonna go back a little bit. What exactly does the process look like? I give you a phone call and say, hey, this is what happened to me. Um, is this a situation where you can help me with, or is there nothing in this? Now, how does that go?
Clark: So that’s a great question. So for us, what that process looks like. So somebody will call, uh, one of our numbers, and we have different numbers in different places, and they say, hey, I don’t know if I’ve got a case or not, but here’s what’s going on. So a receptionist will answer that phone call. They’ll ask some basic information. Let me have your telephone number and let me have your email address in case we get cut off. Okay. And then when did it happen? Uh, what happened? Were you hurt? Did you receive medical treatment? They’re going to ask those questions in just a few minutes. You’re going to tell them those answers to those questions. Based on that, they’re going to decide who’s the next person you should talk to. And then the next person is going to be an intake person, either depending on what area of how you were hurt and the circumstances. And then that intake person is a professional. This is all they do, is talk to people who may have been injured, who were injured in cases in accidents and may have a personal injury claim. And they’re professionals in our office. These are people who have investigated and, uh, many of them have law enforcement experience, like extensive law enforcement experience, investigative backgrounds. And they know what they’ve investigated. Accidents and wrecks and other kinds of accidents, industrial accidents and those kinds of things many, many, many times. And so that’s what they’re going to. They’re going to ask more detailed questions to get more detailed information. And then they’re going to answer, uh, your questions, make sure that you don’t have any questions about, um, you know, does it make sense for me to hire a lawyer? Does it? Do I not. Do I need a lawyer? Do I not need a lawyer? Um, and then. So, for example, I. Part of what I do is I screen calls. It’ll say in the thing that this call may be recorded. And a lot of times I’ll listen to those calls, and I’m listening to those calls to make sure that the people are saying what they need to say, saying it correctly. They’re compassionate. Uh, they have an urgency to them, and they’re documenting things properly, and they’re answering people’s questions and so we want our guys to be able to answer those questions now. So do I need a lawyer? Should I get medical treatment? Should I, uh, give a recorded statement? M. Those are questions that people will ask if they ask legal questions. And those intake people will connect them with a legal. With a lawyer that works in our office who can answer those questions for them. If they’re not legal in nature and there are other kinds of questions, then those people will answer those questions. And then if the person decides that they want to proceed with us, um, which is most likely the case. But I mean, many times, like I was telling you, I answered questions. I reviewed, uh, calls yesterday out of the, uh. I, uh, mean, I don’t. I don’t know how many calls we got yesterday. Let’s say it was 50 calls yesterday. Many of those calls were, here’s what’s going on in your situation. This is why at this time, I don’t think you need a lawyer. Let me answer your question to make sure you’re okay. Okay? And then if you have any follow up questions, I want you to call me back, ask for me, and I’ll help you, okay? And that’s because at that point in time, that person did not need a lawyer. You know, um, and here’s an example of why. One of them had a work injury. And everything was going the way that they should. It should. They were getting all the treatment they should. It wasn’t a serious life, it wasn’t a permanent injury, and it wasn’t a situation where we could add value. So we just wanted to make sure they were doing all the things that they were supposed to be doing. They’d filed all the things that they had supposed to be filed, and they were okay, and they had a resource. They could call us back if they needed to. And that’s so a lot of times that’s the situation. But then a lot of the other, uh, out of those same amount of calls, several, many people did need help and we could add value. And then we’re like, okay, well, here’s how that works. And so we can send somebody to their home to get the document, the representation agreement signed. We can docusign. Most people docusign. I mean, before, um, Covid, I mean, everybody would come into the office and now everybody would just assume docusign. So we send it to their phone or to their email or to their whatever, and then go over with them and then they, uh, docusign and we start immediately. And it’s important that we do start immediately because I Can promise you that insurance company has started immediately. That’s what they do. As soon as there’s a. You’ve seen these trucks ride, or maybe not, but. But they have these trucks riding around that are like the so and so insurance company claims van or whatever. And so after an accident, they are almost always immediately going down the road and they are doing the things that they need to do to, um, to investigate. They’re not neutral. You know what I mean? Like, in other words, if you, if you, um. A teacher, for example, or a coach. Right? Or so. So if you’re, if you’re going to Team USA’s volleyball tryouts and you’re trying to be on the national team, you expect that to be an objective person who’s going to honestly give an assessment of what’s
00:05:00
Clark: going on and who can do what and who can contribute here and who can contribute there and who’s going to be the best for our team. Right? And that’s. But these people who investigate and work for the insurance company, I mean, I don’t. I’m not, I’m not talking about anybody in particular, but in general, I would say that it’s fair to assume that they want things to go well for their employer, right? They wouldn’t be in business very long if they were trying to find ways to make their employer pay more money. So insurance companies do two things, right? They take in premiums. That’s their revenue, and they pay out claims as part of their expense. They also have to pay operational expenses, salaries and, you know, and rent and those kinds of things. But part of their biggest expense is claims paying for the loss of paying, uh, for losses, right? And so they want to maximize their revenue and minimize their expense. Like every business on earth, they want to maximize how much money they make in the form of premiums collected, and they want to minimize how much they make in the form of claims. You know, and I mean, all you got to do is if you talk to, uh, any, uh, insurance. So I have friends that are lawyers that are insurance defense lawyers. They, they do what I did 25 years ago, and they represent insurance companies. And if you ask any of them, they’re like, yeah, they’re. I mean, they beat us up over our bills. So they, that’s what businesses do. They try to pay the least amount of money that they can pay, uh, for their expenses. And in this situation, an injured person is an expense because they’re a claim. And so these vans that ride around, that’s what they want to do. They want to investigate the claim not as an objective, neutral party, but as an interested party who has an. Has an interest in minimizing the payout, the expense of that claim for an individual person. Right. Uh, thanks for joining us. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We’ll see you next time.
