What Is A SC Personal Injury Lawyer Initial Consultation?

The short answer is that it's a meeting with a (hopefully) experienced personal injury lawyer you can trust to answer your questions about your case. At the meeting, if you've got a case requiring an attorney, you can decide if you want to hire the lawyer to help you.

I'll handle the specifics of what goes down in these meetings in a minute. But first, here's what a South Carolina injury lawyer initial consultation should be about for you:

Trust.

You deserve a lawyer you can trust because you are entrusting a critical moment in your life to them. This is the one chance you have to do your case right. You can’t afford to give it to a lawyer you don’t trust. The attorney-client relationship just won't work unless you can trust your attorney.

To trust someone, you've got to have a meaningful relationship with them. As a Spartanburg, SC personal injury lawyer, here’s how I look at the attorney-client relationship, which may surprise you. The client is the employer, and the lawyer is the employee. The initial consultation is a job interview. To get the job, the attorney owes it to you to prove their trustworthiness.

In this article, you’ll find some pointers to help you evaluate the trustworthiness of a South Carolina accident injury lawyer in the initial consultation.

If you’ve got questions about your South Carolina injury case, get them answered in a free, no-pressure strategy session with a Spartanburg, SC personal injury attorney. Call toll-free at 888-230-1841 or fill out a Get Help Now form.

Use Reviews to Find a South Carolina Personal Injury Lawyer You Can Trust

You can get an idea of whether you can trust a personal injury attorney with your South Carolina case without picking up the phone or walking into their office. Let your fingers do the walking by searching for Google reviews. I can't tell you how critical Google reviews can be in selecting a South Carolina personal injury attorney. They are unbiased opinions and reports by real people who experienced what the lawyer had to offer.

Just speaking for myself, I don't write the reviews, I don't edit them, and I don't pay for them. Generally, they are written by people who talk to or meet with me. Many are written by clients who hired me, and they report what their journey was like with my team, how we treated them over the course of their case, and how they felt about the outcome. These are real people with actual cases, and they will tell you in no uncertain terms what it was like to deal with me and my team. I expect it should be the same for any other South Carolina accident injury lawyer.

With internet reviews, you should never have to take an attorney’s word for it that you can trust them. Wondering what it's like to work with us? Check out our Google reviews.

Five Things to Consider During an Initial Consultation With a Personal Injury Lawyer

As you decide which South Carolina personal injury lawyer to hire, it’s essential to ask yourself the following questions:

Does the Lawyer and Their Staff Really Care About Me?

Reviews give real people who actually dealt with the lawyer the chance to express what it's like to meet them and their staff and what it's like when you hire them. I've heard some horror stories about lawyers and staff who seemed like a dream in that first meeting, but as soon as the retainer is signed, they disappear until they try to sell a settlement offer to their client who doesn't even understand where it came from or how they got it, or if it's even a good offer. Through reviews, you might be able to find out if a lawyer will be with you through thick and thin or just show up to tell you to take an offer you don't understand so the lawyer can get paid.

Will the Lawyer Meet With Me?

If a lawyer won't show up to meet you, don't expect them to stand up for you in your personal injury case. If they won't show up to lay eyes on you and answer your questions, all they see in you is their one-third contingency fee of whatever they convince you to take. These are the lawyers whose clients get their questions answered rudely. Or they just get ignored. Don't hire a lawyer without meeting them face to face, preferably at their office, so you get a feel for their staff who will be taking care of you and how their office is run. Even if you meet the lawyer for the first time during a hospital visit, you should be welcomed to the attorney's office at some point so you can be acclimated to the workplace where they do the most important work for you, your casework.

Am I Welcome at the Law Office?

When you call or come in, does the attorney and their staff seem happy to hear from you, or do they make you feel guilty about making them work? My team and I know just contacting a lawyer is scary. We strive to welcome folks with a friendly, easygoing, supportive environment, no matter who you deal with at the firm. Your initial meeting with us won't be an interrogation. It's a question-and-answer session with free legal guidance from us.

Do I Feel Secure?

Initial consultations and all information exchanged between South Carolina personal injury attorneys and their clients are confidential. Do you feel your sensitive client information will be protected?

Is the Meeting About Me or Them?

The initial consultation with a South Carolina personal injury lawyer should not be the lawyer’s interrogation of you. It's a job interview for them. Here are some factors to evaluate whether they put you first.

Do they answer your questions? Regardless of how the attorney feels about your questions or how important they end up being to your case, they are the most important questions in the world to you. You deserve to have them answered. You deserve to have them answered respectfully, sincerely, and thoroughly.
Do they give any free information about your case? Attorneys who “gift” their knowledge without expecting anything in return tend to take good care of their clients. It doesn't matter whether any or all of that information is useful to you, it's the thought that counts. It shows how much they care, and it also shows how much they know. An attorney who's knowledgeable about what they do generates well-earned trust from clients.
If all the attorney does is ask how you got hurt and then shakes a retainer in your face, run. Even worse, if the lawyer won't meet in person but instead just gets their questions answered over the phone, then sends a non-lawyer employee to your house demanding you sign the retainer agreement, don’t answer the door. You've been shown exactly what the attorney cares about getting paid for your case, not you. To these attorneys, you are no more than another bank deposit to fund their next commercial. That means they want a quick settlement, and they don't care if it shortchanges you- just like the insurance adjuster.

If you're considering a South Carolina personal injury attorney for your case, call me toll-free at 888-230-1841 or fill out a Get Help Now form.

Basics of a South Carolina Personal Injury Attorney Initial Consultation

Three things should happen at your initial meeting with a South Carolina personal injury attorney:

It should be free. Simply put, this is the industry standard. For me, it's the recognition that my potential clients have fallen on hard times, and I'm not going to pick their pocket for a small fee just to talk to me, especially since I know they can’t afford it.
There should be no pressure. The decision about who to hire is completely yours, and no attorney with integrity should seek to overpower your will. Doing so is a sign of a lawyer who puts their interests above yours, and that's not who you’re looking for as a lawyer. This is a huge decision for you, and if you need more time to make it or need to interview some other attorneys, I respect that. I'm not going to use any high-pressure sales schemes or scare tactics to twist your arm to hire me. I want you to hire me because you're convinced it's the right thing to do and you trust me.
It should be a strategy session. Over the course of the meeting, you should discuss key aspects of your case. The first aspect you should discuss is liability (legal fault required for settlement eligibility). You should also have as detailed a conversation as you can about the extent and nature of your injuries. Minor injuries like small bruises or slight whiplash often don't require a lawyer. How badly you’re hurt often determines how much of a settlement you can expect and whether the settlement should include future medical care. You should also discuss the impact of the amount of insurance coverage that's likely available to pay for your injuries. You should leave the meeting with a solid overview of the attorney’s strategy for achieving a substantial settlement in your South Carolina personal injury case.

At the end of the meeting, one of three things should happen:

If you've got a case requiring an attorney- and hopefully, you've consulted with an attorney who's honest enough to tell you if you don’t- you decide to hire the lawyer, and they go right to work for you.
If someone needs more information or time to think about it, they should get it. If it's you, you should be granted any information you request that the lawyer can reasonably deliver or be given the time you need, all with patient respect. If the lawyer needs additional information or time to think, they are only doing that to make sure your case makes sense for you to pursue. That request should be honored by you.
If you don't have a case requiring an attorney or you decide not to hire the attorney, you should part with mutual respect as friends. That's how I do it, anyway.

Like so many other things in my office, I've developed a system for initial client consults in personal injury cases. You can read how those work and these articles:

Wondering what it's like to work with us? Check out these Google reviews from actual clients that I don't write, edit, or pay for.

What is the initial consultation in a South Carolina personal injury claim?