Medical malpractices occur when healthcare providers fail to offer standard care to their patients. This usually leads to additional injuries, health problems, and at rare times, death. If you’ve also been a victim of medical malpractice, you must be thinking about what to do next. You can hold your doctor and the hospital accountable for the ill-treatment they provided by filing a lawsuit against them.
However, cases related to medical malpractice can be pretty complicated. This is why finding a competent lawyer who can represent you and help you get compensation is crucial. Here we’ve listed five things you should look for in a lawyer to hire when filing a medical lawsuit. Let’s check out!
Find out what type of a lawyer they are
Primarily, in medical malpractice cases, there are two types of lawyers. The first type includes those who represent doctors or insurance companies. The other type represents people who have experienced medical malpractice by the doctors. The latter is also called a plaintiff’s lawyer and is the one you should approach for your lawsuit. So, do the best possible research you can to connect with the correct type of lawyer. You can ensure this by searching for medical malpractice lawyers residing in your area. You can also double-check by calling some associations directly and ask if your potential lawyer is a plaintiff’s lawyer or not.
Additionally, look for lawyers who specialize in your particular injury case. For instance, if you sue for childbirth-related injuries such as cerebral palsy, you need to find a lawyer for this condition to get the proper legal help. If you hire a lawyer who isn’t well-versed in your type of medical injury claim, you’ll be at a significant disadvantage.
Consider the payment options
For obvious reason, lawyers charge a lot of money. However, there are different ways to pay your lawyer. These ways include:
- Contingency fees
- Flat pay rate
- Hourly pay rate
Some medical malpractice lawyers work based on a contingency fee. In this type of billing, the lawyer provides you all services free of cost. You only owe the fees if the verdict is in your favor. If you don’t get a winning verdict, you’re not entitled to pay anything to the lawyer.
Another way to pay your lawyer is by setting a flat fee. In this type of billing, the lawyer charges a fixed price for the lawsuit irrespective of its duration. However, lawyers who specialize in medical cases avoid this mode of payment. Considering the severity of these cases, they take a long to settle, and a flat fee for such cases is worth a hill of beans.
Lastly, if you’re thinking about paying per hour, STOP! This form of billing is considered the most expensive for medical malpractice cases. Communicating the billing form before hiring legal counsel will save you lots of confusion and time.
See how many cases has the lawyer/firm won so far
While looking for suitable lawyers, you must look for the number of successful cases under their belt. Even though reputation and experience are also of equal importance, they fail to determine the success rate. Therefore, you must evaluate the types of cases the lawyer has represented and the number of successful cases. This will give some surety of a positive outcome for your case.
Evaluate their reputation
Learning about your potential lawyer’s reputation is essential to understand their career and success better. You can get a lot of information by approaching previous clients and reading reviews online. It would be better to contact lawyers who are associated with an organization. Legal firms have a reputation to maintain, so they tend to have more skilled lawyers who can defend their clients in the best way possible.
Determine if they have enough experience
Experience is the best teacher that leads people to perform better and strategically. This is why experienced lawyers are always in demand than those who are wet behind the ears. Lawyers who’ve been a part of cases related to medical malpractice tend to have more information and knowledge about standard medical practices and procedures. You can always look up lawyers or lawyer’s associations that focus on medical malpractice cases. Furthermore, you can ask your potential lawyer some questions to decide whether they’re suitable to represent your lawsuit or not. These questions can be:
- How was your last case? Was the final verdict in your client’s favor?
- Have you ever experienced taking a lawsuit to trial?
- What’s your success rate?
- What was the nature of the medical malpractice cases that you handled previously?
- How vast is your medical-related knowledge?
Asking the above questions will help you evaluate the lawyer’s legal practices and whether they have the experience to represent you or not.
Conclusion
Finding a good lawyer to represent you in a medical lawsuit can be tricky, especially when there’s a lot at stake. This article went over a few tips to help you find one. Check for experience and reputation. Talk about the payment options to avoid a bad deal. Also, evaluate their success rate to gain some surety. Ensure that you meet a lawyer who’s competent, skillful, and knows the work.
