The Top 4 Reasons A Personal Injury Lawyer Won’t Take Your Case

When you’re in need of help, you oftentimes turn to a professional, and those professionals typically welcome you with open arms, It’s rare for a doctor to turn away a patient or for a mechanic to tell someone to take their vehicle elsewhere for service, but sometimes professionals need to say “thanks, but no thanks.” The same is true when it comes to personal injury law.

But why in the world would a lawyer opt not to take someone’s injury case? In this blog we explore the top four reasons why a lawyer may decide not to take you on as a client.

Why Won’t An Injury Lawyer Take My Case?

Lawyers don’t like turning away clients, but it does happen. If it happens to you, try not to take it personally, because the decision likely has nothing to do with you as a person. There are likely factors beyond your control at play. Here’s a look at four reasons why a lawyer may decide not to take you on as a client:

1. Conflict of Interest – It’s possible that your lawyer has a conflict of interest with your case. Your lawyer is legally required to disclose these potential conflicts, so if one exists, expect your lawyer to tell you about it. Perhaps they personally know the other driver, they have family that works for the company you are suing, or the firm is already representing someone else involved in the accident. If this is the case, you’ll have to look elsewhere for representation.

2. The Statute Of Limitations Has Passed – We can only do so much when it comes to getting compensation for our clients, and there’s nothing we can do if the statute of limitations has passed. We always recommend moving forward with an injury case as soon as possible, but if you wait months or years to talk with an attorney, it’s entirely possible that you’ve missed your window to file, and a lawyer can’t rewrite state-mandated deadlines.

3. Spread Too Thin/Low Stakes – If the lawyer is currently very busy building cases for other clients and doesn’t think they’ll be able to give your case the attention it deserves, they may recommend that you seek out assistance from a different firm simply because they are too busy. Other times it may not be worth their time to pursue a very low-value case, but they’d be more than happy to give you a little more information about how you can pursue the case on your own. Lawyers aren’t just holding out for million dollar cases, but at the same time, they get a small percentage of your winnings, and if your case is only for a small amount, the time and effort they’d have to put in may not be worth it.

4. Lying/Unlikely to Win – Finally, it’s possible that your lawyer may turn you away if they sense that there is a major issue with your case. If they believe you aren’t telling them the full truth, or it’s clear that it’s going to be extremely hard or even impossible to win a claim, they’ll likely pass on the case. Unlike criminal defense or family law lawyers who bill for their time, injury lawyers only get a fraction of any award they win for their client as payment, so an attorney isn’t going to invest a lot of time and effort in a case where they are unlikely to win and earn a paycheck. If they have concerns about your honesty or can tell that the other side clearly has the upper hand, they may level with you and say that this isn’t the right case for them.

We want to take you on as a client but we’ll level with you if it’s just not the right fit for one reason or the other, and we’ll always help point you in the right direction if you’re better off elsewhere. But we’d love to take a look at your case and get you the compensation you deserve, so if you’ve been injured, we hope you’ll reach out to Dean Margolis and the team at Margolis Law Firm today at (952) 230-2700.