Dietrich Law Firm PC Jed Dietrich How to find the best injury lawyer in Buffalo New York

The question is what happens when all of a sudden you need a personal injury attorney? Something happens. Well how do you go about finding one? How do you know that personal person that you're thinking of calling has the experience that you're hiring them for? Do you go on just cost? What happens next? You’re so frazzled by that point well these are great questions for attorney Jed Dietrich who is here with those answers and more. How are you Jed? Great Linda. Good to see you again.

I'm so glad we're bringing this up because sometimes when you find out all of a sudden you need an attorney it's panic mode. It might be something that's out of the blue. An accident, you get served with papers you're like you know you're not thinking - it's like being in an accident almost you know what I mean? I do. Now you’ve got to make these decisions and you don't know if you're making good decisions right away. All you know that I need this person and I need them now. Well it goes right to attorney and counselor at law and I tell all the people come into my office attorney is giving the legal advice counseling is listening and any good lawyer listens and it's similar to the medical profession you have to listen, take a history from someone and then you can determine based on the knowledge you have or the knowledge you're gonna go out and get in terms of doing research as to what needs to be done on a particular case.

We're talking about today how to find the right lawyer and obviously experience is important you hear of a lot of folks advertising saying they have experience. The question is which lawyer is going to handle your case? Is it going to be the lawyer who has the experience that they're talking about on the ad or is it going to be the lawyer who perhaps just got out of Law School who's handling a lower-level case? So when I when I when I say I have experience and the people in my office have experience that's coming directly from me so you're going to meet with me if you need to talk about a personal injury case and we're going to handle the facts and we're going to apply them to the law and give you the proper advice. So when you're choosing or selecting an attorney whether it's a personal injury lawyer or any other type of lawyer you're gonna look at the person's track record, their background and you can't just go on what the firm's all about because you never know who you're going to get you can hear a story about going to a large firm and meeting with a senior partner and then a week into of the case then your case gets transferred to a lower-level person or a lot of times you won't even meet with the person who you see on TV, you'll meet with a lower-level person right from the get-go and you don't know if that person has ever tried a case before or not. So you want to do your research.

You can go to the Internet to do that many people go to the Internet these days my website is calljed.com. I've got some information there on my background and also ways to determine who the best lawyer is for you in a particular circumstance. So it sounds like it's almost like if you're going to go to a procedure for a doctor it's fair to ask that doctor you've done this before? How many of these have you done? It's not rude to ask the attorney have you been in court with this kind of a case before and how have you done? That's exactly right and the point that I like to make and it's an important point is it doesn't cost any more in the personal injury area to hire a lawyer with a great track record versus someone with not so good of a track record.

It's very important because in the personal injury area the lawyers are paid 1/3 of the the gross settlement proceeds after the disbursements. So if the case settles for a $100,000 and you have $10,000 in court costs brings it down to $90,000 the lawyer gets $30,000 the client gets $60,000. Now whether you have a lawyer who's got a great track record it's gonna be the same fee or whether it's going to be a lawyer who doesn't have a great track record the fee is always the same so what I like to say is you'd want to get your best value and it doesn't it just doesn't cost any more to hire a lawyer with a great track record because all the lawyers in my particular business have decided we're going to do it for 1/3. And there are some exceptions to that but the vast majority of the cases all the automobile injury cases, that I handle are all handled at 1/3 and that's pretty consistent throughout the country some states have greater attorneys fees but frankly in New York it's 1/3 and it's fair it's a fair way to work so I know what I'm going to get paid down the road and again there's no fee whatsoever until the case is settled.

So I work for free until the case is settled and we're going to talk about this in a couple of weeks, we're going to talk about the court system and the time frames that it takes to bring a case along and typically in short cases take a while to get into court because people are treating with their injuries. The courts are busy and lawyers are busy but I'm never gonna hold up a case based on my schedule I will make a change in my schedule I’ll accommodate, I won't take a vacation, I'll do whatever needs to be done to get the case where it needs to go down the road. Now Jed I have a question for you let's say someone at home is listening and they're going you know I like what you have to say this is good and I'm not getting this treatment at my current attorney but you know what they got all my papers and I really want to make a change, we haven't gone to court yet. Can I do that? You absolutely can and as I mentioned before I don't like to take business away from other lawyers. However, another lawyer may not be the right lawyer for you in this particular circumstance.

You may have called your your real estate lawyer you may have called a family lawyer and they may have referred the case to someone else and again every time you go down the line where you meet with someone it goes to somebody else. You end up talking to a different person every time. Absolutely, it's disjointed and there's not accountability there in my office I'm the one who's accountable you can account to me and this and my staff I've trained them that way so that they have to be accountable to me and to the clients. So, to answer your question there's no additional attorneys fee to change lawyers in midstream with a personal injury case. You got a car accident case and your lawyers not calling you back the first thing I would do is to say call your current lawyer and say “I want to sit down with you I don't like the way you're treating me,” many people have done that already they still don't get a phone call back to complain about not getting the call in the first place. And then you have the opportunity to switch to a different attorney.

It doesn't cost any more, the incoming lawyer who's the lawyer who takes it over midstream works with the outgoing lawyer to determine what a fair fee is and if you can't work it out you go to court that's what the judge is for and I handle those cases if you've got something like that I'm at 716-839-3939. My staff is more than willing and I'm more than willing to talk to every person that wants to talk to me and I meet with every person personally. I mean I sit down with everyone who I believe has a valid claim at least enough for me to investigate and I talk to them and I give them information. It's a free consultation doesn't cost anything and frequently when people switch lawyers and I sit down and talk with them the first time frequently I don't have them sign the papers the first time I say you know what why don't you go home think about what I said think about how your first lawyer has been handling your case and then maybe get back to me in the last couple of years I've had that happen a couple of times and the people call me back two or three days and say you know what I just can't work it out with that first guy I'd like you to get involved and I send a letter and it's a relatively easy transfer and you don't have to talk to the first lawyer again either.

I’ll tell you that's comforting, but the bottom line is it tells you to make a good decision right from the get-go and yeah it is kind of panic mode when you find that so you want to talk with someone like Jed because he's gonna make you feel better he's gonna spell everything out to you and tell you what you can expect to make that whole thing, that whole situation easier for you and you feel involved in it as well. It can be a comforting thing it's because like I said a lot of people find that they're in kind of emergency panic mode maybe it's a sudden death who knows what it is? But the Dietrich Law Firm is where you need to go. It's 716-839-3939. You'll talk with Jed personally and again you can log on and find out what their attorney office is all about and how it feels to you right from the get-go it's calljed.com. Jed’s going to be back in a couple of weeks but his office is located at on Kensington Avenue in Amherst. Jed thank you. Really awesome stuff, good information, good helpful information for everyone out there who finds that they do need an attorney. This proceeding segment was sponsored by the Dietrich Law Firm. [Music]