We LOVE to help people. While Illinois work comp law is generally great, many workers get screwed or taken advantage of, even if they don’t realize it. There aren’t many better feelings at work than knowing you helped turn a bad situation into a good one. Our state wide network of experienced Illinois work injury lawyers has done this thousands of times.
Sometimes someone comes for you to help and you can’t help them. That sucks, but it’s often out of our hands. Generally speaking, we make more money on very serious injury cases than we do with moderate injury cases. So when a worker with a neck fusion who needed another surgery came calling, we were disappointed to have to turn him down. Understanding why could help other workers.
First off, his case was very old. He was hurt in 2016. A lot has happened since then, but the age of the case makes it really messy. But the bigger factor is that we’d be his fourth law firm in that time. The first was only on the case a month, but even if you disregard them, having two other firms withdraw from the case indicates that there are problems with the case. The worker told me he had no idea why the lawyers quit which in my experience is him not being honest. It’s ok to tell a lawyer what the problems are. But given that the case has been around for almost eight years and those lawyers did most of the work, they’d get most if not all of the 20% fee.
This caller wants to get an additional surgery which means taking the case to trial. We don’t shy away from that when cases are clean, but as stated this one is a mess. His original surgeon said he didn’t need another surgery, but a new doctor he found disagrees. It’s hard to win a case at the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission when you are doctor shopping and a credible doctor has found against you.
Beyond all of that, there is a mid six figure settlement offer on the case. The previous attorneys would be entitled to all of the fee from that offer. In other words, if we took the case to trial, won and then settled, we’d have done all of the work and get paid nothing.
The lesson is that if you pick the wrong attorney or see red flags, if you wait too long to switch lawyers, you’ll probably be stuck. You certainly won’t be able to find a new, good one to take over. I’m afraid that this worker could be without representation and might lose out on some of his rights.
So what some of the big red flags to look out for? A lawyer not communicating or treating you rudely is one. Another big one that happened here is when your benefits get cut off and they don’t have a plan of attack they will share with you. On one case we reviewed, in more than 14 months after benefits ended, the lawyer hadn’t done anything to get the case ready for trial and the worker lost his home. It can take a few months to get ready for trial, but if your lawyer isn’t doing anything or doesn’t tell you the plan, you might want to look elsewhere.
Had this worker come to us any time between 2016-2020 and there wasn’t a settlement offer, we probably could have helped. But this far down the road, with that many other lawyers on the case and the big offer, there’s simply nothing we can do. And I promise you that doesn’t make us happy at all.
