Thursday, August 27, 2009

A tale of two lawyers

No more evil lawyer jokes for the next 90 days (at least).

I helped connect my parents with a personal injury attorney in connection with mom's accident in the Dominick's supermarket parking lot a few weeks ago. Without naming names, here's a small inspiring tale of ethics in action.

P.I. attorneys, if you know this genre, are the ones that ordinarily give other lawyers a bad rep-- so-called ambulance chasers, who work on contigency, are not always the nicest guys in town, let us say. So, our family approached the legal challenges of the accident with some trepidation.

Luckily, friends in the Chicago area were generous with referrals, and my parents settled on a finalist, who came to the rehab center for a discussion, interview, etc.

The lawyer (P) turned out to be great, and the clincher was this: the attorney I knew who referred us to P declined his customary referral fee, and P, in turn, decided to lower his retainer % by a comparable amount. Impressive.

Maybe there is hope for the rest of us....




No comments:

Post a Comment