When you call us and ask “what is my case worth,” we can’t give you a reliable answer without seeing your medical records. But we can tell you if it likely has a lot of value or not.
Recently a woman called me who had four knee surgeries and a knee replacement. She’s back at work with permanent restrictions. I don’t know exactly what her case is worth, but I know it’s worth a lot for a work injury case.
The fact that it has a lot of value makes me furious that the Chicago work comp attorney she hired two years ago has been treating her like crap. He’s well know for yelling at clients and not providing them with anything resembling customer service. His firm advertises a lot and gets a lot of clients. So it seems he’s either too busy to handle them all or doesn’t care if he alienates any of them. We get calls from their clients all of the time.
This woman was as sweet as can be and was just hoping that someone could answer a simple question for her in relation to her feeling that she was retaliated against when she came back to work. Apparently her attorney, who clearly isn’t in her corner, screamed at her, telling her that wasn’t his job and basically making her feel like she was a bother.
I don’t get this lawyer at all or the others like him. The best source for new business is a happy former client, so selfishly any attorney should want to deliver good service. In this case though the client is incredibly nice and has a great case. He’s going to make probably close to $20,000.00 off of her claim. So his job is to answer any and all questions and do whatever he can to help her. That would be true though, both legally and morally, even if he was going to make nothing. If you sign on to represent someone then you are agreeing to answer their questions.
This guy seems to want the money without the work. And it’s really pathetic because good people go to him and others like him, not realizing that he’s awful at his job.
I’m certainly not perfect with the people I talk to, but I’ve always operated by the standard that if I ever don’t want to talk to clients or potential clients then I need to find a new job. I still love it so no worries on my end. Just sad though that there are others who continue to treat people awful because they either don’t want to give up the money they are making or don’t know how to do anything else.
You should know that you don’t have to accept this awful behavior. You can and should switch lawyers. It’s the only way to send a message that this behavior isn’t acceptable.
