We’ve noticed an uptick of late of attorneys in Illinois telling their potential clients what they want to hear. Business is down for a lot of law firms and some are doing whatever they can to land a client. This includes flat out lying.
If you were hurt in a Car Accident and want to know the likely value of your case, if it seems to be worth $40,000.00, an honest Lawyer will say it’s worth $40,000.00. If the lawyer thinks it’s too soon to say what it’s worth, the honest one will say they can’t give you a good estimate right now and explain why.
The lying lawyer who just wants you as a client will tell you that your case worth $40,000.00 is worth $100,000.00. Why? Because if you call three lawyers and two tell you the case is worth 40k and the third says they’ll get you 100k, that last one sounds good. The reality we find in most of these situations is that this is the type of lawyer who only cares about themselves and not the client. When push comes to shove and they are getting you a much lower amount to settle, they will just come up with some b.s. excuse/lie and move on.
In one case we were called on, the lawyer got the settlement offer which was less than half of what they originally promised. When the client called them out on it, the attorney denied ever saying that and then told the client if they don’t like it they should get a new attorney. Unfortunately by then it was too late.
In another case, a person with very serious injuries from a car accident was hit by a 20 year old who only has $30,000 worth of insurance. The reality is that nobody is going to ever recover more than $30,000 on that case because even if you go after the 20 year old as an individual, they have nothing. A caller to my office told me some lawyer said the case was worth a million dollars! That might be what the case is worth because the injuries were so major, but if they tell the client they are going to get more than 30k they are full of it.
The good news is that most attorneys I come across are honest, decent people. The bad news is that there are enough that are just bad business people or desperate and think they have to say what a client wants to hear. All we can tell you is that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is and you should be aware of that before you sign with a lawyer.
