Should you get a lawyer after a car accident? Or any accident? We often receive phone calls from injury victims who delayed contacting an attorney for help because “I am not the kind of person that would ever file a “lawsuit.”

Your mail box, your TV, and your phone book are full of advertising by law firms to be the best firm to handle your personal injury or wrongful death claim. In the “old days,” such promotion did not exist as law firms were not legally allowed to advertise their services to injury or wrongful death victims or their families. As a result, clients found their way to a good firm simply by word of mouth from other satisfied clients.

Clients are always surprised and frustrated to learn that the jury is not allowed to hear that the other driver was issued a traffic ticket—often for following too close or inattentive driving in a rear-end collision, or for disregarding a traffic signal in an intersection collision. Almost always, such evidence will be excluded by the judge at a jury trial.