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You hired a lawyer that you thought would be great for your case. It turns out that
after hiring them, they're not the right one for you and now you want to go to another
attorney. And you're asking yourself can I switch attorneys without any repercussions?
Would you like to learn the answer? Come join me as I share with you this great information.
Hi. I'm Gerry Oginski. I'm a New York medical malpractice and personal injury trial attorney
practicing law here in the state of New York. The short answer is yes you can. Now here's
the procedure in what happens. Let's say you now go to the second attorney and you tell
them, "Listen. I want you to take over my case." The second attorney agrees to do so
and here's what actually happens. The second lawyer will then send off a letter to lawyer
number one that says hey lawyer #1: "I've now been asked by Mr. Jones to handle and
continue representing his case. So I want you to stop all work. And by the way, let
me know what legal work you have done up until now so that now we can record exactly what
you have done. And in addition, please send us the medical records. Please send us whatever
you've been able to obtain as part of your investigation and we'll happy to reimburse
you for those records." Now here's something that you do need to know about. The first
attorney will now have what is known as a 'lien' for any legal work he has done up until
that point. So what does that mean for you in a car accident case or in a medical malpractice
or even a wrongful death case? It means that depending upon how much legal work the lawyer
has done, if you are successful when now attorney #2 handles your case at the end of the case
lawyer #2 will have to work out with lawyer #1 how much of a percentage that lawyer #1
is going to get out of that single attorney's fee. So what that means is that the attorney
works on contingency. He only gets paid if he's successful in getting you compensation.
Now in an instance where you go from one lawyer to a second lawyer, there's only one legal
fee. And at the end of the case when you're successful (I should say if you're successful),
the two attorneys then have to get together to work out the percentages by which each
one believes that they're entitled. And if there is an ongoing dispute about how much
work the attorney has done, now the two attorneys have to go into court and resolve it in front
of a judge. And the judge will have to make a determination about what the fee split is
based upon the initial work that was done by lawyer #1 and what was done by lawyer #2,
as well as what the ultimate outcome and the ultimate compensation that you were able to
receive. So why do I share this information with you? I share it with you just to give
you an insight and an understanding that just because you go to one lawyer doesn't mean
you're locked into that lawyer for life. If for whatever reason you are unhappy with the
way the attorney is handling the case, if you are unhappy with the communications skills
with the attorney or for whatever reason, you then have the ability to pick up and go
to any other lawyer that you chose. And in order to do that, it's a simple matter of
following procedure that lawyer #2 is going to know about. You know, I you probably have
questions of your own. And if your matter happened in the state of New York and you
do have legal questions, what I encourage you to do is pick up the phone and call. I
can answer your legal questions. This is something that I do every single day and I welcome your
call. You can reach me at 516-487-8207 or by email at Gerry@Oginski-law.com. Well that's
it for today's quick video. I'm Gerry Oginski, have a wonderful day!