As the famous proverb goes, “To err is human”, you are likely to make mistake while deciding on hiring a personal injury lawyer. You may need to change your personal injury lawyer for a number of reasons. For example, a lawyer may promise many things to you that convince you to decide on hiring them, but, at the end of the day, they fail to meet those promises. At times, a lawyer is unable to return their client’s phone calls. This may cause frustration to the client. Sometimes, neither the lawyer nor the client is at fault but, for some reason, they just cannot work together.
Revocable
Sometimes, there are clients who think that once they have hired a lawyer, the decision is set and final and that they cannot change that. They think that they are going to be stuck with a lawyer no matter how incompetent and lazy he proves to be. As a client, you have the right to change lawyers just as you have the right to change any service provider that you have hired.
Cost
Cost is the main factor that you might consider before terminating the contract with the existing lawyer and choosing another better lawyer. This process may cost you a considerable amount of money. First off, you have to pay compensation to the current lawyer for their efforts to handle your case up to this point.
Apart from the usual payments and fees that you need to pay to the new personal injury attorney, they may charge an additional fee to take over the case from another lawyer. They charge these fees to familiarize themselves with the case and to obtain information from another party. If they are going to charge you by the hour, then you should be ready to pay a tidy sum of money to them.
If the attorneys you have hired, including the old the new one, are to be paid on a contingency basis, then changing the lawyers will not add to the cost for you. In the contingency method, the payment to the lawyer is made on the basis of a percentage of the total compensation that the other party will pay you.
Paying Up
Certainly, there is a reason for which you are going to change your lawyer but it does not mean you should not pay the former lawyer. Still you should pay some sort of compensation to them as they have worked on your case. You need to pay them for their expenses and the effort they made to handle your case.
Disputes
In some cases, the lawyer may go on a dispute to recover the amount that should be given to them after the payment of a settlement. At times, it is necessary to take the matter to the court for resolution.
Keeping a bad attorney may cost you a lot more than finding a new one. This may also result in losing your case. Therefore, if you notice that your lawyer is not handling your case properly, then you should get rid of them right away.