There has been a phenomenon in the last ten years or so of attorneys spending millions on billboards and TV ads to try and get personal injury clients. It’s scummy to me, but not against the law.

Some of these big spenders are actual Chicago law firms. Others are actually based in places like Florida, Nevada and elsewhere and their main partners are not licensed in Illinois. They hire local attorneys and feed them the cases for a share of the profits. It’s not the best way to get a lawyer.

Car accident lawyers in Chicago and really all of Illinois only handle cases that involve injuries.  Some of these cases also, of course, involve damage to the car itself.  While we don’t know lawyers who do just property damage cases, every car accident lawyer we work with handles both the injury part and the property damage part. Those two things go hand in hand and it’s part of giving full service to clients.

What I’ve seen with these big advertisers is that many of them tell their clients that they will only handle the injury part.  Some of these firms are overwhelmed with cases and want to limit their work only to the part that makes them money. So they tell their clients that they are on their own even if they no longer have a car to drive or are getting screwed by the insurance company’s offer to make repairs.

This is ridiculous and just terrible customer service.

The good news though is that you will find out about this terrible service early on in the case. If they won’t help you out then they are not the right law firm for you. You can and should switch lawyers and given that it’s early on in the case there should be no cost to do so.

A sad fact is that insurance companies will try and take advantage of people whose main concern is the damage to their car. They know that lawyers won’t get involved over just that issue because there is no money to be made. They also are aware of these shady firms and know that they don’t always fight for their clients. The insurance companies have nothing to lose by not paying you fair value for your car or even paying you at all. In fact, a person whose car is totaled and has a major injury has a better chance of getting paid for their car than someone who was rear-ended at a stoplight but didn’t see a doctor.

The reason attorneys only handle cases that involve an injury is that there is no money to be made if they are only being compensated for the work they do to get your car repaired.  They’d have to charge you by the hour which wouldn’t make financial sense.

If you’d like to find and attorney that will handle both the injury part and property damage part of your car accident case, we can help you. Call us at 312-346-5320 any time to speak with a lawyer for free. We cover all of Illinois.