When Should You Call a Personal Injury Attorney?

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Video Summary

In this video transcript, attorney Clark Speaks outlines critical elements for accident victims to consider when selecting legal representation. He emphasizes that extensive experience is vital because it allows a lawyer to refine their processes and learn from previous mistakes. Furthermore, a firm’s access to resources and professional networks, such as medical specialists and accident reconstruction experienced, ensures a more comprehensive presentation of a client’s story. Speaks also highlights the importance of a firm’s willingness to litigate, arguing that insurance companies only offer fair settlements when they know an attorney is prepared for trial. By using tools like victim impact videos, legal teams can more effectively demonstrate the profound physical and financial toll an injury takes on a family. Ultimately, the source defines a successful practice by its commitment to holistic recovery, helping victims heal emotionally and financially.

Transcription of the Video

Clark Speaks: I’m Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to The Verdict. Now, what factors—say I have been in an accident—what factors do I consider when I’m making the decision to call a lawyer? I think that’s a good question. And the factors that I would want to know, if I were looking for someone to call, is first of all: does someone have the experience? For example, I’ve been doing this for 27 years. I am more proficient at it now than I was 20 years ago. I have seen more; I have done more; I have had more experiences. I have learned from past challenges and we have a better process. I know what I’m proficient at and I know where we utilize others who are highly skilled.

Experience is a huge part of it. Resources are also a part of it. There are big firms and there are small firms. For a lot of things, I might like to go to a “mom and pop” restaurant, but in this case, it’s different. In legal matters, the resources a firm possesses become important because of the relationships we have. Because of the size of our operation, I can help people see medical authorities, such as orthopedic or neurological professionals. We also have relationships with highly trained consultants, whether they are medical authorities or accident reconstruction engineers, biomechanical engineers, or economic consultants.

We use economic consultants all the time to forecast the financial impact of an injury. That is the objective in this process. I’m not going to do a better job because I make up evidence; we are going to do more to help people because we do a more complete job of telling the story. The resources we have, such as video, allow us to show a deeper description of what happened and tell the story more effectively of how a family is affected. A picture is worth a thousand words, and a video is worth a thousand pictures.

You also want someone who is committed. Our mission is to help accident victims recover physically, financially, and emotionally. That commitment includes the ability to try cases. If I go to an insurance company and say my client was injured and I need you to pay for the damage caused, but I do not go to court, they are not going to respond effectively. They might give just enough to make me go away. But if we have the ability and the commitment to fight in court, they recognize they need to pay the actual true value of the claim or risk losing in court. We spend time developing trial strategy and building cases for trial so that we often do not have to go. As a result, very few of our cases end up in actual jury trials, but they are all prepared as if they were.