The area of personal injury litigation is very competitive and so there are many different lawyers to choose from. When you are initially meeting with the lawyer, make sure that the first meeting is an initial free consultation. If the lawyer is not prepared to see you on that basis, try the next one.
Your first meeting with a lawyer is your chance to assess the lawyer and whether you wish to retain him/her.
Before hiring the lawyer, you want to be sure that:
The lawyer has the expertise and knowledge to handle your case;
The fees quoted are reasonable; and
The personality of the lawyer is such that you feel you can work with him/her over an extended period of time.
In order to get the most out of your first meeting with the lawyer, it’s important for the lawyer to have all the information available. What is helpful is to provide a chronology to the lawyer along with all the documents you have on your ICBC case that have come from ICBC and/or your doctors/therapists. If you provide the lawyer with the information in advance of the meeting, the likely result will be a better discussion at the meeting.
Whenever you consult a lawyer, there is solicitor/client privilege. This means that whatever you tell the lawyer cannot be disclosed to other parties. Therefore, you should not avoid full disclosure to the lawyer on the basis that you are worried that the information will be told to ICBC or someone else. As a result, it’s very important to provide full disclosure on everything, whether good or bad, so that you can get the best idea of how to proceed. If you hold back information you may be proceeding forward in one direction when you should be going another direction. The last thing you want to do is find out halfway through the process that you have no ICBC claim because you forgot to disclose critical information to the lawyer.
Like a job interview, you may wish to ask a number of questions of the lawyer to see if you feel comfortable with him/her pursuing your ICBC claim. Some questions you may wish to ask are:
General Questions
Does your firm have a brochure or website with information about it?
How long have you been practicing law in the area of ICBC litigation? (You want a seasoned personal injury lawyer that acts principally for plaintiffs only and not ICBC)
How much ICBC defense do you do? (You probably do not want someone that works mainly for ICBC)
Who will actually be working on my file? (Do you want a lawyer who offloads your file to a junior at the firm?)
What is the use of legal assistants by the lawyer? (Do you want a lawyer who offloads your file to a legal assistant?)
Have you handled similar cases to mine? (You want a lawyer who has worked on similar cases)
Have you been in trial in the last year or two? (You want a lawyer who is prepared to go to trial if ICBC “low-balls” the case)
How many files are you currently working on? (You do not want a lawyer that has a huge number of files and cannot give your file much attention?)
What is your policy regarding returning phone calls or correspondence? (You want a lawyer that is punctual in returning your phone calls or correspondence)
Who will fund the disbursements on this case? (If the lawyer is not prepared to fund the disbursements you should look elsewhere)
Who will fund the treatment expenses on this case? (If the lawyer is not prepared to fund the treatment you should look elsewhere)
Questions about your Case
What is the likely outcome of my case?
Can tell me what the case worth is?
What are your recommendations on how to proceed forward and the timelines for doing these various steps?
Questions about the Legal Fees
Have the lawyer show you a copy of the proposed fee agreement? (Make sure the amount you are paying as a percentage is reasonable and also, make sure that there are no hidden costs for such things as extravagant interest charges on disbursements)
If the lawyer is proposing an hourly charge, find out everything about the proposal including when you are supposed to pay legal fees, the hourly rate, who covers the disbursements, etc. (it is very unusual to hire a lawyer in an ICBC claim based on an hourly charge)
There are obviously many other questions you may ask but the above questions will probably give you a good idea of whether this lawyer is the person for you.
Meeting a lawyer for the first time is like a job interview. Not only is the lawyer analyzing you and the case to determine whether he/she will take your case but also you need to decide whether this is the person for you because there are many personal injury lawyers to choose from.
You do not have to settle on the very first lawyer you meet.
