There is a Chicago work injury lawyer who is famous amongst his peers for being the laziest, slowest moving guy out there. He has a marketing shtick that gets him clients based on the prestigious school he went to. Even with that, when you look at him, you wonder how anyone can feel comfortable hiring him and having him in their corner. He’s kind of poorly groomed and sloppy and he talks very slowly. I remember when I started off as an insurance defense lawyer in work comp cases way back in 1997, I was assigned to handle a case against him. The case was over 10 years old and the very nice Arbitrator was screaming at him because almost every case he had in front of her was old. The case I was working on was four years old and we had a settlement offer on the table that was never responded to in the two years before I took it over. His client wasn’t getting treatment and apparently he never even told him that there was an offer. We ended up paying him the same amount that we had been offering for 24 months.
Yet somehow this guy keeps on getting clients. I really don’t get it, but it’s not my problem. As a client, it’s up to you to decide if the lawyer you are thinking of hiring is a good choice for your case. If you think I suck, don’t hire me. If you think the attorney I recommend is awful, don’t hire them. But if you see a guy whose got mustard on his shirt or smells of alcohol (one lawyer in town is notorious for that) or is screaming at their secretary and you still hire them, then it’s on you.
I bring this up because I was called by a guy who hired the lawyer I wrote about and he of course was not happy with his choice. He told me that the lawyer always tells him what he wants to hear, but never actually does anything. He only hired him he said because his buddy had used him on a case. “But then I remembered that my buddy’s case had taken years and he didn’t like the guy.”
That made me laugh both because it was funny how he said it and it’s pathetic about how the customer service is with this attorney.
When you are hurt on the job and have a serious injury, it’s as if your life is on the line. There are a ton of good lawyers out there. There are also a bunch of crappy ones that yell, don’t return phone calls or like this guy, don’t actually do anything at all even when minimal effort would get a result. If you see red flags then you need to take note of them. If your case gets screwed up to the point of no return there will be nothing that anyone can do for you.
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