Find the Best Personal Injury Attorney

The stakes are high when you’ve suffered serious injuries, whether in a car accident or as the result of a doctor’s negligence. You should try to find the best personal injury attorney. It is critical as a prospective client to look at his trial experience and track record in the courtroom. At DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys, our veteran Syracuse personal injury lawyers have decades of experience representing people like you who have suffered catastrophic injuries and losses. We handle cases arising out of car accidents, truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, dangerous property conditions, animal attacks, birth injury, and medical malpractice.

One of the biggest considerations when you’re trying to find best personal injury attorney should be whether he has experience taking cases to trial. You should be aware that not every attorney has courtroom experience; some simply settle cases, and sometimes for less than they would have gotten had they had the experience and resources to go to trial. It can be challenging to stay in the business as a personal injury lawyer over many years, and those that are able to do so, typically have talent as well as a track record of success. Our Syracuse personal injury and medical malpractice lawyers have more than 30 years of experience.

You should look for a lawyer whose experience indicates they understand experts are likely to perform well at trial and persuade a jury in your favor when highly technical matters are involved. For example, our lawyers have many years of experience working on failure to diagnose cancer cases, and we understand which oncologists are Board-certified, but are also able to succinctly explain technical issues related to different types of cancer to the laypeople that make up a jury.

You should look for an attorney with a track record of success handling the same type of case you believe may need to be filed in your specific case. For example, if you think a Syracuse truck driver crashed into you because he fell asleep at the wheel due to fatigue, it is crucial to retain a personal injury lawyer with a record of obtaining significant settlements and wins for truck accident cases, including cases brought on the basis of the trucking company’s negligence. For another example, if you suspect your OB-gyn should have ordered an emergency C-section but failed to make the right call at the right time during labor and delivery, such that your child was born with cerebral palsy, you should retain a birth injury lawyer who has obtained substantial compensation for other families whose children suffered this birth injury.

When a lawyer has significant settlements and wins in similar cases, he or she is likely to understand how to evaluate your case’s potential and also know how to present cases to juries persuasively. One of our partners Jeff DeFrancisco has won two lawsuits that were worth $10 million each.

In addition to considering word of mouth and whether a lawyer’s clients were satisfied by the service they received, you should look at the respect other lawyers and judges have for the lawyer. Membership in organizations such as the local bar association and prestigious groups tend to demonstrate reputation. For example, our partners belong to the Onondaga County Bar Association. We have an Avvo.com Perfect 10.0 rating. We have been rated at the top of our game by Martindale-Hubbell and Super Lawyers. We are lifetime charter members of the Best Attorneys of America and in the Top 100 of National Trial Lawyers. Our reputation also figures in our membership in one of the most prestigious organizations for trial lawyers in the country, the Million Dollar Advocates Forum.

The best personal injury lawyers understand how insurers think about and evaluate cases and protect their clients’ interests based on the ability to predict the steps an insurer will take to evade liability given a particular set of circumstances. Often an at-fault party’s insurance company hopes to prove that an accident victim was comparatively negligent or otherwise at fault. When a jury finds comparative negligence, the plaintiff’s damages award will be reduced by an amount equal to the plaintiff’s own fault for her injuries. Needless to say, insurers have incentive to act aggressively towards accident victims to try to establish comparative negligence. Our lawyers evaluate possible defenses when evaluating prospective clients’ cases to determine the best way to present what happened in order to avoid a reduction in the award.

You want to hire a Syracuse personal injury attorney who handles lawsuits on a contingency fee basis. With this type of fee arrangement, you do not need to pay the attorney’s fees unless her or she wins financial compensation on your behalf, whether through a settlement or an award after a successful trial. In most personal injury lawsuits, fees amount of 1/3 of the recovery, while fees for medical malpractice lawsuits can be anywhere from 10%–30%. The best personal injury attorneys are paid on this basis because accident victims rarely have the money to front the costs of a lawsuit when they’ve been seriously injured. Instead, a good attorney with resources takes on all those expenses and risks in advance of knowing how the lawsuit will turn out.

The veteran Syracuse personal injury lawyers of DeFrancisco & Falgiatano Personal Injury Attorneys represent people injured in Lowville, Rochester, Auburn, Watertown, Herkimer, Oswego, Wampsville, Canandaigua, Lyons, Ithaca, Cooperstown, Oneida, Utica, Binghamton, Auburn, Buffalo, Elmira and all of Upstate New York. For a free consultation, complete our online form or call us at 833-200-2000.