How do you switch lawyers for your personal injury case in Florida? Now, the reality of the situation is that not every client and not every lawyer gets along in every case. And unfortunately, this situation happens from time to time to every single lawyer. Now, we hope it doesn’t happen very often for us. But again, the reality is you simply just don’t connect with every single client in every case. So what do you do in a personal injury case if you’re dissatisfied with your lawyer or you’ve just simply found a lawyer or a law firm, uh, that you think would be a better fit for you? Well, here in Florida we do allow for the transfer of lawyers to handle your personal injury case and that goes for any type of contingency type case. So if it’s a premises liability, a slip and fall, a car accident, a trip and fall, an auto accident, motorcycle accident, truck accident, it really doesn’t matter.
So what happens in many clients just simply don’t understand this, is that the Florida rules of procedure under Florida rule, I think it’s four dash 1.5. It allows in every single case you to reconsider your lawyer within three business days from the date of signing of the contract. So if you find another lawyer within that timeframe, you can cancel your contract with your personal injury lawyer as long as you do it in writing. So what many, many of the people who come to us, they find us online, they see our reviews, they think, wow, there’s law firms way better than the person that I hired already. Uh, when they come to us, they’ll simply submit an email or fax over some type of notice to the previous law firm within that three days, and they’re off the hook with the contract. Now if you have had a previous lawyer that you’re dissatisfied with and you want to change, and it’s after the three days, again, you can do that in writing.
You just simply submit a letter. Uh, but there are different repercussions to your new lawyer. So if it’s after the three business days, your old lawyer can assert a lien against the, against the recovery in your case. Now, for your purposes, it really doesn’t affect you is it just comes out of the one third that you would normally pay anyway. So there’s no harm to you. But whatever the attorney’s fees are, say let’s just use 30,000. Say the case is worth 30,000. The fee is one third. So that’s 10,000 to the lawyer and the previous lawyer had a lien for $2,500. Your new lawyer takes 2,500 out of his 10,000 and pays off that lien. And that’s basically a lien for whatever time they’ve had in the case, uh, thus far. Now there’s one caveat when it comes to transferring lawyers. If you have terminated your previous lawyer for cause, in other words, they’ve done something that they’ve not, they’re not returning your phone calls, they’ve made a mistake in your case, some type of cause that they are not entitled to a lien against that new lawyer.
Uh, the reality again is, uh, if you’ve had a case for a long time, uh, the lien is going to be pretty high and most lawyers will not take over a case, uh, when it is stale, it’s an old case because simply the, the lien is going to outweigh the worth, the worthwhileness of taking over that case. So, but if it’s a, if it’s something that you’ve realized within the first few weeks that you want to switch personal injury lawyers, uh, then you can do that and most lawyers will then take over and pay whatever small type of lien there might be. So again, we hope that you have had, uh, a good relationship and a good result with your personal injury lawyer. But if you, if you have not, uh, these are, these are really the rules and the, uh, the procedures on how to switch law firms. If you are unhappy with the lawyer that you’ve chosen to handle your personal injury case and you want to get a second opinion or talk to us and find out if we’re willing to take over the representation, please contact us at St. Petersburg personal injury attorneys, McQuade and Douglas for a free consultation.
*The above has been transcribed by a third party service and has not been checked for accuracy.
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If you or a loved one have been injured in an accident, then you should take the proper measures to ensure you receive the compensation you deserve. Contact St. Petersburg Personal Injury Attorneys McQuaid & Douglas today and speak with an attorney. For over 60 years our firm has been successfully helping people who have been injured due to someone else’s carelessness. We have been nationally ranked for decades by US News and World Reports as a Tier 1 law firm, which is the highest ranking that can be received. Sean McQuaid and Jonathon Douglas have dedicated their careers to continuing the firms legacy of superior legal representation.
Remember that we never charge a fee, unless we win. Call us today at 727-381-2300 so that we may answer your questions, help you navigate the complexities of insurance claims, and recover the compensation that you deserve.
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St. Petersburg Personal Injury Attorneys McQuaid & Douglas
5858 Central Ave suite a, St. Petersburg, FL (727) 381-2300
5 out of 5 based on 20 reviews
Sean McQuaid and Jonathon Douglas were voted best personal injury attorneys in Saint Petersburg, Florida for 2019.
