Why Picking the Wrong Lawyer Can Be Disastrous

Picking the Wrong Lawyer can Ruin Your Case

We’ve had quite a few experiences of people coming to us to try to sort out a problem caused by picking the wrong lawyer.

Sometimes the lawyer was unqualified. Sometimes plain incompetent. Sometimes the lawyer did a fine job, but his or her personality didn’t mesh with the client’s. And of course, sometimes the lawyer did everything right, and the client was someone who simply would never be satisfied – that does happen.

Here’s a story that sticks out in my mind.

A woman had been in a car crash. She was rear-ended pretty hard. Her car was repairable, but the back was crunched way in, about a foot or more. She was a waitress and she hired a lawyer she’d met at work, because he ate in her restaurant often. She knew this frequent customer was a lawyer because he liked to tell everyone he was a lawyer.

She didn’t ask him how many personal injury cases he’d handled. If she had, the answer might have surprised her. He was not an injury specialist, he was a “general lawyer.”

There was a time when “generalist lawyers” were competent to handle personal injury cases, but with the complexities of insurance law, that’s probably no longer true.

This poor woman had some back and neck pain, but no broken bones. She told the lawyer that she did not lose consciousness from the crash, but that she had trouble remembering things, including words, to such an extent that she literally could not speak for about a week after the crash. And still, months later, had great trouble recalling words. She said that she used to get teased by her friends and co-workers for being so smart. They called her “brainy.” But now, she couldn’t even remember how to play games that she used to consistently win.

This lawyer took her case, did just about nothing for 6 months, then told her that he’d gotten an offer to settle for $30,000, and that she should take it.

The problem was, this lawyer did not recognize a brain injury. In fact, the client kept telling him that she had a brain injury (it was obvious to her, from the inside), and he just thought she was crazy. So the lawyer thought $30,000 was a great offer for a sore neck and back. And it was. But it’s not a great offer for a brain injury. Eventually the offer got up to $50,000, and the lawyer was so furious at her for not accepting it, that he quit three days before trial.

She came to us, and we got the trial set back, and got her to a brain injury specialist. Here’s a clue: she said “I did not lose consciousness during the crash.” But further questioning showed that she had a gap in her memory. The true answer was not that she didn’t lose consciousness, but that she didn’t know if she’d lost consciousness. Unless she fell over, how would she know? She was, after all, unconscious!

We got her to the brain injury specialist, who in turn got her to medical specialists who proved that she was not crazy, but was in fact brain injured from the crash.

The result: trial and a $367,000 verdict. On a case that her first lawyer quit because the client refused to accept $50,000.

Shulman DuBois LLC is  a personal injury law firm located in Portland, Oregon, and serves clients in all Oregon cities and counties, including: Portland, Beaverton, Multnomah County, Hillsboro, Gresham, Lake Oswego, West Linn, Tualatin, Troutdale, Sellwood, Corvallis, Salem, Eugene, Milwaukie, and Albany.