Posted: August 30, 2024
You Are Never Hiring a "Law Firm" to Handle Your Malpractice Case
There are lawyers who like to practice law with lots of other lawyers who do different kinds of work. A car wreck lawyer may go into business with a divorce lawyer, and they may add some tax lawyers and some business lawyers as well. Some lawyers like to do a little of everything--so one lawyer may handle car wrecks and disputes with landlords and criminal cases and real estate documents.
Lawyers who like to be in a firm that does a little of everything often get together, and eventually some of these firms grow larger--some even very large, with dozens or hundreds of lawyers.
Nothing wrong with that--unless you have a serious case which requires someone with a unique skill set. Then you need a lawyer with that unique set of skills, not a bunch of lawyers who do legal work you don't need to have done.
Nobody hires a pediatrician to do a heart transplant. Nobody goes to a dentist for knee surgery.
You shouldn't hire lawyers who normally handle car wrecks or divorces for your medical malpractice case.
One Case, One Lawyer, One Choice
Walk into any courtroom in Arkansas and you will see something that looks like this:
You will sit in one of these chairs. One lawyer will sit next to you and be the lead lawyer on your case. One lawyer will address the jury. One lawyer will present your medical case through medical experts. One lawyer will cross examine the witnesses for the doctors you sue. The doctor, just like you, will have one lawyer sitting next to him at trial.
Doctors and their insurance companies always hire medical malpractice specialists to defend them. If your lawyer doesn't know medical malpractice law, if he doesn't understand the medicine, or if he doesn't know how to present your medical malpractice case to the jury, you will lose.
These cases are no place for rookies, and no place for lawyers who usually handle slip and fall accidents, or child support disputes.
Don't be fooled by lawyer advertising with pictures of 5,10 or 200 lawyers. You're only going to have one lead lawyer handling your case at trial. That one lawyer better know what they are doing.
And you definitely don't want a local lawyer who plays golf with the doctor who you have to sue. See why hiring a local lawyer for your malpractice case may be a bad mistake.
Which Lawyer Are You Actually Going to Get?
If a law firm has 200 lawyers or 2,000, the only thing that matters to you is "which one of these lawyers is going to be my lawyer?" and "does my lawyer know how to handle a medical malpractice case?"
There are even law firms with hundreds of lawyers in other states--but that doesn't help you here in your Arkansas medical malpractice case. You need someone who is licensed to practice in Arkansas, not Pennsylvania.
20 inexperienced lawyers who don't practice in Arkansas and don't handle medical malpractice cases might as well be 200 or 2,000 or 20,000. One lawyer will be sitting next to you in court. You need to choose one lawyer who can win for you.
