While our law firm is known for being the place to get the right attorney recommendation for your case, we also provide free legal guidance to anyone that wants to ask us a question.
We don’t promise that we will always know the answer, but after 13 plus years in business and having talked to over 300,000 people, there is almost no legal situation that we haven’t seen before.
Many of the questions we get start off with callers asking “Is it legal to” and go from there.
Some of these are simple such as is it legal for a 20 year old to have sex with a 16 year old (it’s not) or can an employer fire you if you don’t show up to work, but it’s the first time that you did it and there was no warning (they can).
But most of the calls we get can’t be answered by hearing just one sentence from someone. Cases are always fact specific so getting more information can change our answer. Even in the example above, if you are fired for a first time no show, but employees of a different race are allowed to blow off work without punishment then you might have a racial discrimination claim.
A recent caller to our office wanted to know if the foot drop she got after a medical procedure was the basis of a lawsuit for malpractice. Similarly a man who had his leg amputated following an foot infection wanted to know if that was a case. The answers to both were that there are certain indicators that would tell us if it was a case or not (the amputee has diabetes which can lead to blood flow problems), but there is no way to give a definitive answer without seeing medical records.
This happens in all areas of law. Some that contact us want to know if it was illegal that the cops searched their car. Again, we need the whole picture to answer that question in a reliable way. That would include seeing the police report. We’ll give an opinion as to what we think is likely the answer, but you should want something more definitive.
“Do I have a case if I feel in the parking lot on my way in to work and broke my ankle?” Well, we’d need to know what caused you to fall, who owns the parking lot, it is for employees only or the public too and many other things.
The bottom line is that if you read legal websites that provide answers to questions, you have to remember that every case is different. Just because some lawyer didn’t think a different person had a good case does not mean that you don’t.
We will always review your case for free and give you an honest answer. We’ll ask probing questions (all calls are confidential) that will give us lots of information and help us offer an educated opinion. But having this full picture will allow us to best serve you. And believe it or not, sometimes getting the full picture can take 20-30 minutes on the phone (always free) and other times it can take one minute. Every case is different.