If you read my blog, you’ll see that we call out attorneys on their b.s. Nobody can guarantee a result, but everyone should be honest.
Most of the lies that I hear about when I get calls and e-mails are ones that are told over and over. I’m not going to talk about those today. Instead I want to talk about one I’ve never heard of before.
I was called by a worker who was hurt in a rural area and unfortunately for him hired a rural attorney. We created our state wide network of lawyers to make sure good attorneys were handling your cases and giving you the best chance of a good result. There are good attorneys in smaller counties, but very few who make Illinois workers’ compensation their practice focus. The ones who do are the ones we recommend and work with.
This worker had a very bad leg injury and developed RSD. His medical bills and benefits were paid for a while until the insurance company IME doctor said that he was fine and could return to work. This was conflicted by his treating surgeon and it’s of note that he was also awarded social security disability benefits.
It’s been been more than three years without pay for him. When he questioned his lawyer why he wasn’t getting paid they told him that the laws have changed and now payment for medical, lost time and the permanent nature of the injury get bundled at once when the case is over.
My mouth dropped when I heard that. Basically the lawyer is saying that they can jerk you around all you want and there is nothing you can do about it. Simply not true!
This is why we have Arbitrators and courts for trials on disputed issues. Now there has been a settlement offer of around $150,000.00 which sounds nice, but in reality doesn’t even fully compensate him for all of his lost time, not to mention the other benefits that he’s entitled to. Of course his lazy lawyer is telling him to take it.
What I really don’t get is that if they did go to trial and win, the case would probably be worth many hundreds of thousands of dollars. Sure it will take some effort, but ultimately the attorney could be looking at a much bigger pay day if he simply did his job. So even if he’s one of those assholes who doesn’t care about his clients, he could selfishly gain so much more by pretending that he does care.
This is the rare case where it’s not too late for an attorney to take over even though a big offer is on the table so we referred him to a lawyer who covers that part of the state and loves to take cases to trial.
I can’t even imagine how the attorney thought of this line of crap. It makes no sense and if it was true there would be no need for that attorney in the first place. Although with his lies and lack of effort, there is no need for him anyway.
