When something bad has happened to someone you love, you probably won’t have the presence of mind to think of calling an attorney—much less looking up who you should call.
We’ve all come to use the internet to help research decisions. At Manning Law, we aren’t afraid of honest reviews, so we thought we’d take a look at three approaches we’d recommend.
Look at Yelp Reviews
If you’re looking for an opinion, Yelp is a good place to start. You can find reviews on almost anything! Newer businesses may not have many attorney reviews, but you’ll be able to find some contact information. You can also search Yelp for information about categories like restaurants with hamburgers, personal injury lawyers or used bookstores.
IMPORTANT While businesses aren’t supposed to pay for reviews, Yelp does let businesses pay (a lot) of money to appear towards the top of the search results. If you’ve had a lot of good reviews on Yelp, sometimes this can help a small law firm stand out. This is a screenshot we took when we ran a search for “lawyers” in Denver this afternoon. Yelp will always let you know if a posting is an Ad with the yellow “ad” sign. You’ll have to scroll down to see the real attorney review results. (it was about a quarter of the page down for us.)
Research Attorneys on Avvo
Over the past few years technology really has made it easier to shop for anything. One new site, Avvo specializes in attorney reviews. It’s also grown to include a number of other features we won’t explore in this blog. If you navigate to the Lawyer directory section, you’ll be able to access reviews for lawyers by category of practice and/or by the state they practice in.
Specialized review sites like Avvo can be a tremendous help in trying to find the best personal injury lawyer in Aurora for you.
Schedule a Free Initial Consultation to Meet Your Attorney
It may come as a surprise to learn that many lawyers offer free consultations or initial meetings. During that time, an attorney (or, if you’re working with an over-sized firm an assistant) will ask you specific questions about what happened. The answer to those questions help attorneys determine if you have a case and how best to move forward.
Free consultations and personal injury law go hand in hand. The majority of personal injury cases are taken on contingency—a practice where the lawyer’s costs and the victim’s healthcare expenses will be paid out of any future settlement.
While reviews can be helpful indicators, there’s just no substitute for actual experience. Think of your free consultation as a job interview. You wouldn’t hire the first person that walked in off the street, so feel free to meet with many personal injury lawyers.
Ask questions that help you feel out how each lawyer may represent you. Check the review sites and pick the one you feel most comfortable with.
We may be biased, but after all the attorney reviews and research we hope you’ll let us defend you.
