We talk to hundreds of people a week about all sorts of Illinois legal issues. While the cases may be different, it’s not uncommon for someone to start off the call by saying something like:

I want to know if I even have a case at all.

To get answer to that question there is one really important factor involved. You have to be willing to accept that you might not have a case. Now it sounds like that would be easy to do when you are just inquiring, but in reality that is not always the case.

Going through a legal issue can be really personal and emotional. You always want to believe there is hope. You want justice if you feel you’ve been wronged. The truth though is that you might have been wronged, somebody might be at fault and there still might not be a case. Or something may be unfair or unjust, but also not a case.

For example, you could go to a doctor’s office with complaints of chest pain and be told it’s just anxiety. Later that day you could have continued pain and go to the ER who diagnosis you with a heart attack and performs surgery on you.

While that sounds like malpractice, it’s possibly and likely just a case of a bad doctor. But because you were smart enough to get a second opinion, you prevented yourself from having damages that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. In other words, the heart surgery was likely to happen anyway. So the first doctor’s negligence didn’t cause any harm. You cant’ sue because something bad could have happened.

That example is in many ways a reflection of the bad health care system we have in the USA. But there are other examples too. You could be let go from your job because your boss wants to hire their friend or relative. That’s totally unfair, but also very legal in most cases. So if you tell me “that isn’t right” I would agree with you, but also tell you there’s nothing we can do.

The benefit of a good lawyer is that we can take the emotion out of a situation and look at it objectively. We are motivated for you to actually have a case as it could make us money. But we don’t lie to people to give them false hope or to make them momentarily feel good. We view it as our job to tell you the blunt truth, even if you don’t want to hear it or believe it can be true.

I encourage you to always seek a second opinion as we are not the Judge and we of course can be wrong. But I also encourage you not to drive yourself crazy doing so. If you talk to multiple lawyers who all tell you the same thing, there’s likely a good reason for that. At some point you have to accept that nothing can be done even if that makes you mad to think about.