Good
counsel
Market
your firm inexpensively
Not everyone has
hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on law firm marketing. Those
on a limited budget can find low-cost—sometimes free—options.
One
method is to explore relationships that provide access to thousands
of people for free. For example, I became the legal commentator for
a local radio station with a signal that can be heard across a 300-mile
radius. I comment on regional, statewide, and national legal issues
in the news, and I am exposed on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis
to several thousand listeners. That opportunity led to another; I
now provide legal commentary at the local television station. I am
not paid for providing this service, but it is the best free advertising
I could have possibly imagined.
Look
into becoming a participating attorney in referral services that offer
legal help to their employees or union members as part of a benefit
program. These referrals are often free; your only commitment is that
if you take a case, you accept the service's reduced fee schedule.
Traditional
advertising can be ineffective and may strangle you with exorbitant
fees. Consider alternatives like these to present an effective message
that sets you apart from competitors and convinces prospective clients
to come to you for help.
Richard
L. Migala
Kalamazoo, Michigan
Proceed
carefully with structured settlements
When
a settlement can be effected in a personal injury case, you must help
the client decide whether to receive a lump sum or a structured payout.
The decision must be based on informed consideration of his or her
case and a thorough understanding of the structured settlement alternative.
If structuring seems the best route, remember to take these 12 steps:
1. Always
obtain the free services of a structured settlement specialist.
2.
Always fully document every de mand, offer, refusal, and counteroffer,
as well as the explanation to the client of the cash or structural
alternatives of the proposal.
3. Always
negotiate a guaranteed minimum return (GMR) for the client through
a term-certain annuity.
4. Determine
the client's total indebtedness and his or her present and future
needs, with the help of an experienced life care planner.
5. Enlisting
a qualified economist, de termine the exact projected cost of each
need.
6. Choose
the appropriate funding me chan ism to meet the client's present and
future needs.
7. Protect
the record from constructive receipt. (The Internal Revenue Service
uses the best evidence rule—that is, the papers and record.)
8. Place
the structure with a secure annuity company.
9. Calculate
attorney fees based on the total cost of the settlement package to
the defendant.
10. Always
include the possibility of a structured settlement in the employment
contract.
11. For
a catastrophically injured annuitant, substantially increase the value
of the annuity by having the annuity specialist shop the rated age
of the annuitant.
12. Carefully
document the client's un derstanding of the settlement's terms and
risks. This is best accomplished by videotaping the session in which
you explain all the nuances of the structured settlement to the client.
Howard
L. Nations
Houston, Texas
Win
your case with low-tech exhibits
When
presenting low-speed collision injuries to the jury, high-tech animation
is not necessarily your best option. Effective low-tech alternatives
are also available. Here are some examples:
· Bring
a car seat similar to the one involved in the collision into the courtroom.
The seat could be fastened to a piece of plywood, for example, to
ensure stability. Use the recliner mechanism to simulate seat back
flexion. If the seat back in your client's vehicle yielded or was
bent (backward if the collision was a rear-ender), set the seat back
at a similar recline angle to replicate the degree of yielding.
· Perform
the same demonstration in the client's car or in a similar vehicle.
Take the jury to the parking lot to look at the car or cut out a section
of the vehicle to present in court, if necessary.
· Using
a piece of Romex (residential wiring), show how a car seat or the
human spine behaves when bent or twisted.
· Illustrate
what happens to an occupant's spine when the collision occurs, using
an anatomically correct model of the spine or skeleton.
· Use
models, available at most toy stores, to show what happens to the
vehicles in a rear collision. Action figures can also show the motion
of passengers when the vehicle is struck.
· Have
an engineer demonstrate what happens to the passengers during a collision
by using a chair.
Simple
exhibits can bring high impact to your next low-speed collision case.
Tom
Lacek
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
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