We’re completely transparent about our free case evaluation process because we know that it’s critical for us to help you — and for you to help us — determine whether or not your case has potential, and if you should seek legal counsel.
Before we dive into the specifics, here’s a quick outline of what you can expect during your free case evaluation with our law firm:
We think it’s important for people who are thinking about hiring an attorney to actually get the opportunity to speak with them beforehand. You’re not going to be talking to a case manager, paralegal, or investigator during your case evaluation. You’ll be talking to a lawyer who knows about the type of case you’re dealing with — one who can help determine whether you’ve got a case worth pursuing and what your options are.
We don’t think you should wait to hear whether a law firm is willing to represent you. That’s another reason why we think it’s important for you to talk directly to an attorney. When we are evaluating your case for you, we are also evaluating it for ourselves. If we think we can help you with your case, we’ll tell you right there on the call so you’ll know you have the option of hiring us. If we need more information from you to make that decision, we’ll tell you exactly what we need and we’ll schedule a follow-up call with you.
When we talk, we’re trying to understand what you’re going through. Usually, that means we’re listening first and then asking questions. Sometimes we ask about little details that are big legal issues. We’re also interested in why you think you need a lawyer and what you’re hoping happens in your case. We’ll be taking notes so we don’t have to ask you to repeat yourself later.
Even though we handle a lot of cases with many similarities, each situation is unique, just like every person is unique. We think it’s important to learn about your unique situation before we give you our evaluation of your case.
Once we’ve got a good understanding of your case, we’ll tell you what we think about it. We’ll talk about whether we think you have a good case or not. We’ll also talk about why we feel that way—how the law works and what our experience has been with similar cases. If we think you’re dealing with something that doesn’t really need a lawyer or doesn’t need one yet, we’ll tell you that too. Sometimes it looks like someone is going to recover money on their own, and we’ll set up a follow-up call down the road to see if that happened or if they really do need legal help.
After we tell you how we evaluate your case, we’ll ask something like, “What questions do you have?” We typically get a lot of questions, including:
Just like we ask questions so that we can better understand the facts, we encourage you to ask questions so that you can better understand the law and the legal process. We know that it’s really stressful to be dealing with unknowns. We hope that by answering your questions, we can help with that stress.
If we can help you with your case, we’ll talk about how that works. We’ll go over how you can hire us. Most of the time, clients want us to work on a contingency fee, meaning we only get fees if we recover money for you. If we don’t recover any money for you, we don’t get paid anything. That’s why when we’re evaluating your case for you, we’re also evaluating it for ourselves, too.
If you’re interested in hiring us, we’ll also walk you through the steps we’ll be taking on your case, and what we need from you to take those steps. We don’t want you to be in the dark about what’s happening or why. It’s important to us that you know what to expect.
Our law firm does not charge anyone if they come in for a case evaluation. We have offices in Pinellas and Sarasota and we’d love to speak with you if you think you have a case.
There is no risk to you to schedule a free case evaluation with Herman & Wells. Use the form on our website or call (727) 821-3195.