When you have been involved in an accident or sustained personal injuries, you have a limited amount of time to protect your rights. Unfortunately, navigating the maze of insurance companies, adjusters, police, lawyers and courts is confusing and frightening. It is crucial that you find an personal injury lawyer that is both competent and affordable to assist you in obtaining the maximum personal injury compensation.

I have been an attorney for more than ten years and have represented both insurance companies and plaintiffs injured because of the negligence of others. I want to share with you what I have learned about how to find personal injury attorneys.

Insurance is a part of all of our lives. Up until your injury, you probably only dealt with an insurance company to pay premiums for your automobile insurance or to file a small claim for damages to your house.

However, now that you have been injured in an accident, you are dealing with an insurance adjuster whose job it is to adjust and settle your claim for the minimum amount of money.

When an adjuster investigates a claim, he writes a report and submits it to the insurance company. I have read many of these reports. In every one, the first paragraph is entitled "Policy Defenses." This paragraph details whether or not the insurance company has a possibility of avoiding paying the claim.

What does this mean to you? Well, it underscores that the insurance company is primarily interested in avoiding or minimizing your claim unless it absolutely is required to pay more.

The insurance adjuster is required to gather a lot of information to develop a settlement recommendation for his carrier. Many unscrupulous adjusters, in conjunction with the insurance company, may use delay tactics to exhaust and confuse you. At some point, they hope that you will take what they offer and walk away.

Some of the tactics used include:

Extensive and repeated examinations. The insurance adjuster will likely demand that you do all sorts of things, have examinations, and tests before he will authorize the payment of your medical bills. Often, they will direct you to be seen by "their" doctor who will almost always diagnose minimal injury and impairment associated with the claim.

Extensive paperwork, inspections and interviews. You will be required to fill out a lot of forms and have your automobile or other property inspected by the adjuster (if it was involved in the accident). They may also want to conduct a recorded telephone interview or have you give a transcribed statement.

Admittedly, the insurance company has the right to document your injuries and monetary loss to substantiate a settlement recommendation to their supervisors. When I represented insurance companies, the claims representative always wanted something in writing to show his supervisor why he authorized payment of a certain amount of money to settle a claim.

However, the illegitimate purpose the extensive "investigation: is to "lock in" your statement (before you consult with a personal injury attorney) to minimize your damages and disclaim future damages. Remember, not all personal injuries manifest themselves at the accident. Many do not become apparent until days or weeks after the incident.

Many accident victims cooperate extensively with the insurance company and adjuster only to find that the insurance company is not willing to pay for all your medical bills and properly compensate you for your pain, suffering and lost wages.

Where you have sustained minor damage to your vehicle, you probably do not need to consider hiring a personal injury attorney. Most insurance companies will require that you get an estimate and will pay the repair facility directly to repair your vehicle.

On the other hand, where you have sustained anything more than minor injuries, you need to at least consult with a personal injury attorney (specifically, a car accident attorney) to determine your rights, document important evidence and evaluate whether or not you might be more severely injured than you realize.

I would certainly recommend consulting with an attorney before giving a written or recorded statement of any kind to the insurance company. Often the adjuster is skilled at conducting witness interviews and can extract concessions that can be used to minimize liability later.

First of all, stay away from personal injury attorneys that advertise heavily on television and radio.

These lawyers are typically not held in high esteem by other lawyers.

These firms operate on volume and will, often, be ready to settle your case quickly, not litigate it. Sometimes, these injury attorneys have no intention of actually representing you. Instead, they intend to sign a fee contract with you and refer you out to another attorney while collecting a substantial referral fee for their (lack of ) efforts.

In lieu of hiring a personal injury attorney off of television, look at these alternative methods of finding an attorney:

Personal Referrals. This is a better method than any television advertisement. Have your friends, family and neighbors ever used a personal injury attorney? Take down the names and focus on those that have come up more than once. Although you'll want to know the amount of settlement, the friend cannot legally disclose this to you if the case was settled without a trial. The information is suspect anyway because people typically exaggerate their results. Better questions would consist of inquiries like:

• Does the attorney return phone calls?
• How often did you get status reports?
• How long were you prepped for depositions or other court appearances
• Did you understand the process thoroughly
• Did your personal injury attorney answer all of your questions?

Law Firm Websites. Take what you read on a law firm website with a bit of skepticism. After all, the website is created for the purpose of advertising the firm. Many firms will have news articles detailing large verdicts and other positive press regarding the personal injury lawyer or his firm.

Google, Yahoo and Bing! Type the name of the law firm or personal injury attorney into the search engine and see if the lawyer active in his community, has had any negative press; or, is currently running for public office? All of these factors affect the lawyer's ability to devote adequate resources to your claim.

State Bar Website. Every state has a State Bar website where you can go and find important information about lawyers licensed to practice in that state. But, remember that state bar associations are usually regulatory agencies, not lawyer referral services. As such, other than finding out whether an attorney has been disciplined or is a certified specialist, the association will not recommend a specific lawyer to you.

Personal Injury Lawyer Rating Websites. Many online lawyer rating services exist. Martindale Hubbell has traditionally been the most respected legal directory. It can now be found online at Martindale.com.

Yellow Pages. The Yellow Pages can certainly be used to find a personal injury lawyer. However, it shares the problems as with television advertising. Do not assume that the bigger the ad, the better the personal injury lawyer. Often the same lawyers appearing on TV and radio will pay big money for the yellow page ads as well.

Once you have a list of candidates, call each of the personal injury lawyers on your list. Schedule an appointment with each of them. The first appointment should be free. This initial meeting serves as your opportunity to interview the lawyer (and the lawyer's opportunity to interview you). Here are some things to consider when interviewing prospective personal injury attorneys.

Big Firm Or Solo Practitioner? Is the firm so large it takes up an entire building or operated out of a strip mall? A small firm lends itself to informality while a large firm may be impersonal but yield a large army of lawyers that can be available to review and consult on the case. But, the most important factor, in my opinion, is how you are treated by your attorney's staff. This is a reflection upon how he, or his firm, run their business.

Personal Injury Experience? What percentage of the practice is devoted to personal injury claims. If the answer is less than 50%, keep looking. Personal injury attorneys have a specialized practice. The injury attorney has to understand medicine, accounting and finance, grief . Not everyone has the expertise and disposition to be an accident attorney.

Trial Experience? You also want an accident lawyer with a certain amount of trial experience. Anyone can settle a personal injury claim. However, a personal injury attorney without trial experience will not have much leverage with the insurance company or their attorneys. If the case goes to trial, you want to know that the personal injury lawyer can perform in front of a jury.

Certification? An attorney that is Board Certified by the state bar association is going to be a competent personal injury attorney. However, many of the best personal injury attorneys that I have had occasion to work with were not board certified. So, while certification is certainly a positive factor, do not necessarily penalize an attorney for failing to be board certified.

Lawyers generally handle personal injury cases on a contingency fee basis. 

Contingency Fee Arrangement.  In a contingency fee arrangement, the personal injury lawyer pays all the major fees associated with the case and then collects those expenses plus a fee based upon a percentage (typically 33-45%) of the net proceeds after expenses are deducted.  The contingency fee contract should be in writing and signed by both you and your lawyer. 

Modified Contingency Fee Arrangement.  Note that, in some instances, the personal injury attorney will determine that your case is of marginal value.  As such, he may offer to take the case if you post a retainer that will be used to pay some of the expenses of the case.  The balance of expenses and fees will be paid if the case settles or you win at trial.  The lawyer makes such an offer to determine if you have enough confidence in your own case to "invest" some of your own money into it.  If this offer is made to you, use it as a basis to negotiate a lower contingency fee.  The lawyer is taking less of a risk and, therefore, should accept a lower percentage should the case pay off.