Davis Adams Only Handles Medical Malpractice Cases: Why That Matters
Many law firms advertise, online and elsewhere, that they handle medical malpractice cases. These firms generally fall into three categories. This short blog post will explain these groupings and give you the questions to ask to ensure you’re finding the best lawyer for your case.
Category One: Advertising Firms that Refer Out All Cases
Personal injury law firms that list medical malpractice as one of their competencies on their website have never and will never handle a medical malpractice case. Rather, they simply refer the case to a skilled medical negligence lawyer in exchange for a portion of any settlement or verdict that’s later obtained (which is permitted, under certain circumstances, by the State Bar of Georgia).
This has always seemed a little dishonest to us. It’d be like our firm advertising that we handle divorces (we don’t know anything about divorce law) and then funneling clients to a skilled divorce lawyer in exchange for some of that lawyer’s fee. How is that right?
If a firm doesn’t have the skill to handle certain cases, or even the intention of trying, they shouldn’t say they do on their website. But it’s common, especially with respect to medical malpractice.
Category Two: Firms That Dabble in Medical Malpractice
At least with cases that fall into category one, above, the client may ultimately be referred to a quality medical malpractice attorney. And the fact that the fee is divided between two firms doesn’t change the client’s bottom line regarding their financial recovery. So, in some respects, the client suffers no harm (but it’s still dishonest).
But this second category of firms is more dangerous: lawyers who say they handle medical malpractice cases and sometimes try to do so when they really shouldn’t. To use another comparison, we generally understand how truck accident cases work, but we don’t handle trucking cases because it’s not an area of the law we know well enough to feel confident that we could deliver excellent representation. There’s just too much we don’t know.
Do you know who’s good at trucking cases? Lawyers who spend their time doing trucking cases. As with anything in life, you get good at a craft by doing it over and over, always learning and improving.
When contacted by a prospective client with what sounds like a big medical malpractice case, firms in this category say, “This case could be worth a lot of money; let’s give it a shot!” Sometimes, they’ll botch the case entirely. Other times, they might get the case settled, though probably for an amount less than a more skilled practitioner could have negotiated. Either way, the client’s one chance for the best possible outcome is gone.
How to Identify Firms in Categories One and Two
You’re best off avoiding these firms. So, before we talk about category three, let’s go over some simple steps to determine whether a lawyer you’re consulting with falls into category one or two.
It’s easy; you just ask a few simple questions:
What types of cases do you mainly handle? If the answer is anything other than, “We primarily handle medical malpractice cases,” you probably haven’t found the right lawyer.
What percentage of your cases are medical malpractice cases? Unless the lawyer tells you that most of their cases involve medical negligence, you should keep looking.
How many medical malpractice cases have you filed in the past year as lead counsel? Most good medical malpractice attorneys file several new cases a year. A lawyer who isn’t routinely filing medical negligence cases isn’t doing much medical negligence litigating.
Can you tell me about cases similar to mine that you’ve handled? Experienced medical malpractice lawyers have handled a wide variety of cases and should be able to discuss cases with similarities to yours.
How many seven and eight-figure recoveries have you obtained? Lawyers love to tell stories about their big wins, and a high-quality medical malpractice lawyer will have won numerous large cases and will enjoy the chance to tell you about them.
Category Three: Competent Medical Malpractice Firms
The analysis gets a little trickier as we move into category three. Lawyers at these firms are skilled medical malpractice litigators who routinely handle large medical negligence cases with success. But as their websites reveal, medical malpractice isn’t their sole focus — they also handle trucking and commercial vehicle accidents, premises liablity cases, and other non-medical cases.
We don’t take the position that we’re necessarily better than all of these firms. However, we believe there’s substantial value in our unique commitment to only helping victims of medical malpractice.
Why Davis Adams Only Handles Medical Malpractice Cases
The analysis gets a little trickier as we move into category three. Lawyers at these firms are skilled medical malpractice litigators who routinely handle large medical negligence cases with success. But as their websites reveal, medical malpractice isn’t their sole focus — they also handle trucking and commercial vehicle accidents, premises liablity cases, and other non-medical cases.
We don’t take the position that we’re necessarily better than all of these firms. However, we believe there’s substantial value in our unique commitment to only helping victims of medical malpractice. If you beleive you have a medical malpractice case you would like to persue, reach out to us today to get started.
