The non-stop television commercials and billboards plastered all over town boast that each personal injury firm is bigger than the next. Attorneys with nicknames and catchphrases photograph themselves in jets and on top of trucks. Proudly, they proclaim they have “call centers” open twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. They have case managers, investigators, and “teams” ready to start your case with one call or, even better, no call at all – just a click or a text to a custom number. From out-of-state or out-of-town, they crash in, set up an office, start advertising and they’re bigger than ever.
That all sounds great until you need to talk to your lawyer. Almost every week I get calls from folks who hired a big TV or billboard lawyer and can’t get a phone call returned. The client has never even met the lawyer who is supposedly working on their case. Worse yet, they often learn that there is no lawyer working on the case at all. They have been assigned to a “case manager” or legal assistant. The client becomes just another number buried in the firm’s quest to become even bigger and buy more TV ads and billboards. The giant firm is lost in a constant “settle fast” mentality to feed their need to buy more advertising to get more cases to pay for more advertising. Celebrity attorneys get rich and the client becomes an afterthought.
The truth is that clients deserve better. There is simply no substitute for meeting with your lawyer face to face. If your lawyer will not return your call or meet with you in person, find another one. If you are truly injured, your lawyer cannot possibly understand your life and the impact of your injury with one phone call or a text. If your lawyer does not have an office where you can go see them or they will not come to see you, that lawyer is probably not really even in your town or state.
At Vaught Law Firm, if you call for John Vaught, you will talk to me. If you have an appointment, you will meet with me. If I take your case, you will get my cell phone number. For nearly twenty-five years, I have represented people from all walks of life, been to their homes, met their families, and battled for them in the courthouses across Georgia. Many of my clients will tell you that they have become like friends and family to me. That is not bigger, it is just the right thing to do. In personal injury firms, bigger is definitely not better.