How to Decide If You Should Fire Your Personal Injury Lawyer

If you've hired a personal injury lawyer and things are not working out, here's how you can go about either improving the relationship or firing your injury lawyer. This is a "personal experience" article--I'm not a legal professional--but it's how I went about getting better service from my personal injury lawyer.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A personal injury lawyer you're unhappy with

1. Your first step is to write down what's happening right now in your relationship with your personal injury lawyer and where it's falling short of your expectations.

2. Figure out what you want. Things aren't going quite right (or maybe they're out right bad) with your personal injury lawyer. If the relationship were ideal, how would that look? Write this down, too. (It's always important to write down what you *do* want after getting clear on what you don't want.)

3. Approach your personal injury lawyer and explain your observations. Talk about the problems and what you'd like instead. Take control but be polite, and be receptive to your attorney's guidance--he or she might have ideas on how to make your relationship even better.

4. Listen to your personal injury lawyer. That's right, once you've spoken your piece, shut up! (I mean that nicely, of course.) Let your lawyer have a turn to talk about your case, your relationship, and what could be done to improve things.

5. Make a decision. Did you feel heard by your personal injury lawyer? Do you feel comfortable with the proposed changes? If you do, that's great! And you'll probably decide to continue working with this injury lawyer. If you don't, though, ask about your options for finding someone new. Your personal injury lawyer should be honest with you--if you're not happy, chances are your personal injury lawyer is interested in what it would take to make you happy.

6. If you do fire your personal injury lawyer, be more careful with the next one you hire--ask for recommendations, and take your time deciding. It's emotional and difficult to fire an injury lawyer and it's not an experience you want to repeat. Also, take a look at what you did that might have contributed to the poor relationship--should you have been more clear? Could you have been more responsive? Taking responsibility for your part in any communication breakdowns can help prevent them next time.

Tips & Warnings

• You may need to get legal advice about ending a relationship with your personal injury lawyer (such a fun circle, isn't it).
• Depending on the status of your case, it may not be a good idea to fire your personal injury lawyer--if that's true for you, work on repairing the relationship, not ending it, so that your work with your personal injury lawyer doesn't become acrimonious.