When a person has acted negligently, it means that the person failed to act in the same manner and with the same prudence that a rational person would have acted in the same set of circumstances. A few examples of negligence:

Personal injury as a result of negligence can happen anywhere at any time:

Personal injury encompasses a wide range of situations that lead to the harm of another person. Some of the most common personal injury lawsuits include:

Personal injury lawsuits exist to compensate victims for physical, emotional and financial hardships. Every personal injury lawsuit has its own unique set of circumstances and as such the levels of compensation differ from case to case. Most personal injury lawsuits work to provide financial restitution as quickly as possible for:

Personal injury lawsuits are complicated and require the assistance of an experienced legal team to research the situation, identify the person(s) or company at fault and obtain the compensation that is due. Time is of the essence in filing a personal injury lawsuit, as all states have a statute of limitations on the time period for which a person can file the lawsuit. This time period can range from 1-6 years, depending on the state.

If you feel you have a personal injury claim and would like to discuss your situation with injury lawyers in Maryland, please visit the website of Cohen & Dwin, P.A. to arrange a free personal injury consultation with their experienced lawyers.

If you have been injured in a vehicular accident and received a citation, it is essential that you discuss the citation with your personal injury attorney. The worst mistake a personal injury victim can make is to appear in traffic court without the advice or assistance of counsel; if the judge finds the accident victim guilty of any infraction other than a license or insurance violation, the judge’s decision may result in the “death” of any personal injury accident claim regardless of the severity of the personal injuries sustained by the accident victim.

The injured accident victim must always look at the “bigger picture” and decide whether in the final analysis points on a DMV driving record are more important than receiving appropriate financial compensation for personal injuries, loss of wages, vehicle repair damages and other out of pocket expenses caused by the accident. Unless the accident victim has unbiased and extremely favorable independent witnesses on his or her side, most personal injury attorneys would advise the injured accident client to plead “No Contest” to at least one count on the traffic citation if the city attorney refuses to dismiss the citation. While technically not admitting guilt or fault, a no contest plea is treated the same as a guilty plea by the courts and by the DMV in calculating points on driving records. However, there is one significant difference. A no contest plea cannot be used in any subsequent personal injury proceeding to establish that the injured accident victim was at fault or contributed to the personal injury accident. When thousands of dollars or more in compensatory damages are at stake in a personal injury case, risking everything to avoid a traffic ticket conviction is not usually a good option.

Reasons to Hire an Attorney

People often think of lawyers in terms of films and television series where a passionate defense attorney makes a desperate yet eloquent speech to a jury (punctuated by “objections” from the competing attorney) hoping to get their client acquitted. Though that may be a nice thought created by Hollywood, law is complex and involves a large amount of intensive, unglamorous work only someone with legal training can accomplish. This training has one goal: to win your case. But even if you did have the training, do any of us have the time to devote to a personal injury case, or at least the time the case would demand in order to ensure a winning verdict or proper settlement?

Why a Personal Injury Attorney?

After suffering an injury the last thing someone wants to do is think about hiring an attorney, but it’s essential to getting the compensation you deserve. A quality personal injury attorney can give you a perspective you might not have on your injury, and also be experienced in the way things like personal injury workers’ compensation laws work. Personal injury lawyers, especially experts, can better navigate the complexities of the legal system and the nuanced vocabulary of the law. The average lawyer is un-practiced in personal injury law and case precedent, which in the long run could cost you time, money, and peace of mind.

Here are eleven major mistakes that personal injury lawyers make with their advertising.

1. Failing to make a decision as to what the perfect business and perfect customer look like. You can’t develop a marketing plan (or purchase advertising media such as Yellow Page ads, TV commercials or websites) without understanding where you are going. What does your perfect client look like? What do you want your law practice to look like? The correct answer to the question “why do you want to spend any money on marketing?” should not necessarily be, “more cases.” Not drawing at least a mental picture of what it is you are after with your practice is like getting on an airplane and saying “take me anywhere.”

2. Failing to accept that marketing and practice building is the most important thing you can do in your law firm – look around. Is it only the best lawyers, real estate agents, doctors in your town who get the best business? Just being a good trial lawyer, (even the best) doesn’t cut it anymore. Isn’t it frustrating to see a lawyer whose has never tried a case get better clients than you do and then brag about it later? By understanding how to market effectively you put yourself into a position to see more cases from which you can choose the ones that match your “perfect customer” profile.

3. Thinking That Copying What Other Lawyers Are Doing With Their Marketing Will Get You A Better Result. Earl Nightingale, one of the world’s foremost experts on what makes people successful, had some good advice for lawyers and other business owners who want to market their practices. He said, (and yes, I am paraphrasing) that if you wanted to learn a new skill in business, and you had no mentor or guide you could trust, that the best thing you could do was figure out what everyone else was doing and then do the opposite. What the majority does is, at best, average. So it is with marketing.

4. Ignoring the Gold In Your Files Right Now. It costs at least ten times a much to obtain new customers as to keep in contact with old clients and indeed, everyone who contacts you. Your files are filled with names of folks who know you. Those folks generally have at least 50 other friends in their “circle of influence.” (Read How to Close Every Sale, by Joe Girard.) Personal injury lawyers are happy to spend thousands on Yellow Page and TV marketing while ignoring completely those who they already have some relationship with.

5. Failing to capture the name of every new person who indicates that he/she is interested in what you have to say. Lawyers spend thousands on generating new leads (potential client inquiries) yet never market back to the cases they don’t accept. In most offices that’s MOST of the new inquiries. Yet this is a goldmine of people that you can directly market to in the future. You can’t rely on the fact that if they or someone they know needs your services or products that they will remember you tomorrow because they called you once in the past.

6. Failing to get ahead of the marketing curve. How many lawyers spend any time trying to start a relationship with a potential client BEFORE that person has a problem? Most personal injury lawyers view marketing as reactionary. That is, the relationship starts once a person is injured and they start trying to find a lawyer. How about if you offered a good reason for people to call you BEFORE they get hurt (good quality information on how to buy car insurance comes to immediate mind), BEFORE they need you. Once they tell you who they are they are inviting a conversation and giving you their permission to market to them directly and as frequently as you can afford to. If you can develop a “herd” of people that listen to you before they have need you, they won’t be looking in the Yellow Pages after they have an accident or need your product.

7. Being an advertising “victim”-most business owners think about their advertising and marketing plan the 30 minutes or so before the Yellow Page rep comes walking through the door. They don’t do any independent research or study. They follow the crowd because “it must be working or else everyone else wouldn’t be doing it.” If it doesn’t work they then take the Yellow Page rep’s advice to “buy more, and use color.” A real sign that you are an “advertising victim” is that you allow the Yellow Page rep to design your ad. This is usually a huge mistake. Think about it–the goal of the Yellow Page rep is not to make your ad beat all the other ads in the book.

8. Failure to accurately measure resultsdo this test. Ask anyone who spends a lot money on advertising exactly how much revenue is returned (ROI-return on investment) they get from a particular TV spot. Better yet, ask the folks running double truck (huge, 2 page) ads inside the Yellow Pages how much revenue those pages generate vs. the outside back cover they are also buying. They won’t be able to answer that question. Would you buy mutual fund without demanding a specific accounting of actual results? 9. Failure to develop a terrific referral system–we all know that the best clients with the best cases come from referrals and are pre-sold on you. Strange as it may seem, clients don’t always know how to refer. The lawyers who really understand marketing have figured out ways to have current friends and customers refer new consumers to them BEFORE they need an attorney. Developing good consumer information products and backing it up with an interesting firm newsletter that it consistently mailed is a terrific way to greatly expand your referral base without using high priced TV marketing.

10. Failure to Diversify Your Marketing-”one” is a very dangerous number. Don’t forget to see what other industries are doing. There are lots of media out there, for example, media not traditionally used by lawyers. While most lawyers think in terms of Yellow Pages, TV and websites, sophisticated lawyer marketers understand and also use low cost coupon media, postcards and free standing inserts. The key is to choose media that is relatively easy to test and then to measure results.

11. Trying to Win the Advertising Game by “Shouting Louder”Most injury lawyers try to differentiate themselves in print and TV media by simply spending more money to “shout louder.” This is accomplished by buying more color, more space, or more TV as spots. The two fold problem of this approach is that (1) it’s an expensive way to run a business and (2) there will always be someone who can spend more than you can.

Personal injury lawyers need to learn to “make a different kind of noise” with their marketing.