Changing your Personal Injury Lawyer
If you are injured in an auto accident, slip and fall, or another type of scenario, you can file a personal injury claim against the person responsible. Compensation from this claim can help you cover the cost of your medical bills, general pain and suffering, everyday living expenses, and lost wages due to missed work.
When filing a personal injury claim, an attorney can help you gather the necessary evidence you need for a successful claim, help you negotiate with the other party and their legal team or insurance company, and provide general guidance. But what do you do when the lawyer you hire seems too busy for your case, has a bad attitude, or seems to present a clear conflict of interest? Luckily, in scenarios such as these, you do have options.
Changing Attorneys Mid-Case
You can fire your attorney for your personal injury case today. You can fire them for any reason and without notice. Some common reasons can include differences in personality and strategy, conflict of interest, a change in the details of the case, and increasing legal needs.
Note that a lawyer can also withdraw from your case for similar reasons, but they must be professional and make sure that as a client, your interests would not be affected negatively.
There are both pros and cons to changing lawyers in the middle of your personal injury case, so if you want to fire your current lawyer and hire a new one, you should make sure it is for a good and valid reason and consider both sides of the issue.
Pros and Cons
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Pro: It will not cost you more money to change lawyers.
You pay your lawyer based on lawyer fees after a case is settled.
If two lawyers worked on your case over the course of the case, they will have to share the lawyer fees based on “quantum meruit”. This means that they will share their part of the " money from your settlement based on a ratio of how much work each law firm performed on the case.
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Pro: You will not have to deal with the personal awkwardness of firing your first lawyer.
Instead, the new lawyer will notify the old lawyer of the change in lawyers via a personal letter.
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Pro: There will be no time loss in your case due to the shuffling of legal assistance.
Your previous lawyer will send all of the documents to your new lawyer in a timely manner. Even though the old lawyer was fired, they are still obligated to act in a professional manner and for your best interest as a former client.
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Con: Finding a new lawyer
If you decide to find a new lawyer after an old lawyer has already done a substantial amount of work on your case and in a substantial amount of time, you may have a difficult time finding a candidate.
This relates back to the quantum meruit rule. The second lawyer will realize that even if he wins the case for you, he will have to share the majority of his lawyer fees with the old lawyer, and the work may not be worth it for the firm.
Because of this, each lawyer that you ask to take on your case will most likely assess its value before making a decision.
