I have read many times that the number one complaint filed with the Florida Bar concerns attorneys not returning the phone calls of their clients. I assume if this is the number one complaint filed with the Bar, it means that it happens a lot and it happens with lawyers in all kinds of firms, large and small. Being an attorney myself, I felt I might be in a position to take a close look at this phenomenon and offer some advice to clients who find themselves in the frustrating position of needing to speak with their attorney and not being able to contact them for whatever reason. To do this properly, I must first differentiate the attorney who is busy and cannot return phone calls, from the attorney who is negligent and doesn’t return phone calls but could.
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Depending on the type of legal case you have or the circumstances of your case, you might have to make a decision about whether to settle your case or not at some point along the way. This point can come right at the beginning of the case, the middle of the case, or even during trial. It can come up more than once during the process. When it does come up, every attorney hears the same question from her or his client: “Should I settle?”
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The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth - Otherwise Known As: Tell Your Lawyer Everything
Dr. Gregory House of the popular television show House says, “Everyone lies.” In his show, he’s always right, the patients always withhold some key piece of information that keeps the doctors from properly diagnosing them, and it always results in them being brought to death’s doorstep until the mystery of the lie is uncovered. Some lawyers would agree with Dr. House about the clients they see in their practices. It seems as though no matter how many times they tell their clients to give them all the information, there’s always some important fact that gets left out of their stories that threatens to change the way a case will go, sometimes significantly.
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