Sometimes I worry that I’ll run out of things to write about. Then readers share their crazy stories that typically involve terrible acts by their attorney, and I have the inspiration for a new posting.
From day 1 I’ve railed against lazy lawyers and those who provide terrible customer service. It’s not something I see in most of the firms I come across, but there are enough out there that are doing a terrible job. And it does seem that 80% of the problems I hear about are done by five or six firms.
In this case, a reader with a pretty serious back injury received a settlement offer on their case in the summer of 2014. Their attorney, who is known as one of the laziest at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission, told him that it was a very low offer and that he should reject it. That was good advice.
Since then, the Cubs went from one of the worst teams in baseball to one of the best. The Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. Derek Rose got injured 20 times. Jay Cutler did a ton of Jay Cutler things. Oh and nothing else has happened on the case.
If there was a counter demand for settlement, it wasn’t relayed to the client. He stopped receiving medical care in the spring of 2014 and is working full duty, so the case is ready to be settled. For whatever reason (which is surely laziness), his attorney hasn’t filed a motion for trial which would surely get settlement talks going. And if that didn’t get things going he could actually do his job and go to trial so he and his client could get paid.
There are a few attorneys like this who will let their cases just sit around for years and do nothing. Essentially that is stealing money from you because it’s not as if you are going to have your case be worth more by waiting around for a couple of years. If your case is worth $50,000.00 today, it’s worth $50,000.00 in 2018 too unless your condition somehow gets worse. And if it gets worse from an activity that is clearly not work related such as a car accident or a fall at home, the value of your case might actually go down.
This isn’t to say that you should ever settle just to settle, especially if the offer is unfair or low. We never tell clients to do that. What we do mean though is that part of being an aggressive lawyer and advocating for your client involves actually being aggressive and advocating. When you do that things tend to work out well for the client. And if the client gets more, we get more, so every attorney should act that way. Yet they don’t do that.
Feel free to contact us about your Illinois workers’ compensation case. Whether you are looking for a lawyer, you’re unhappy with your current lawyer, or you just have a question, call us at (312) 346-5578 or complete our contact form online.
