Oftentimes personal injury attorneys are presented with conflicts of interest. Let us take the example of an auto accident to illustrate this point. Suppose for example that an attorney is presented with the situation where both the driver and passenger of the same car are involved in a Massachusetts auto accident, and they both seek to have […]

Many, if not most Boston personal injury attorneys, and personal injury attorneys throughout the greater Commonwealth, advertise their services. Lawyers are allowed to advertise their services, but they must do so within certain ethical guidelines. One such guideline is the requirement that an attorney’s advertisement not be misleading. An example of a misleading personal injury […]

This is a common lament among injury victims. Many people tell me that they are unhappy, and sometimes downright mad when their personal injury attorney won’t respond to their telephone calls. In Massachusetts, all attorneys have an ethical duty to keep their clients reasonably informed about the status of a case. This is a standard that […]

Lawyers negotiate a lot. Your Massachusetts personal injury lawyer will negotiate on your behalf with the insurance company and with opposing counsel. But lawyers may only negotiate within certain ethical bounds. Here is a post provided by the Illinois Legal Malpractice Blog about a new ethics opinion promulgated by the American Bar Association on the topic of […]

For many different reasons, your Massachusetts personal injury lawyer may terminate the lawyer/client relationship with you. The lawyer can generally do this at any time unless the case is in litigation. If the case is in litigation, then the lawyer will need the permission of the court, and the court will only allow the lawyer to withdraw […]

This story is really bad and exemplifies greed run amok. The New York law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad & Shulman yesterday received a 20-count indictment for allegedly paying illegal kickbacks to plaintiffs in class action lawsuits. Here is an excerpt of the story provided courtesy of The New York Times: The securities class-action law firm of Milberg Weiss Bershad & […]

Massachusetts personal injury lawyers are, like all Massachusetts lawyers, required to adhere to certain ethical requirements. One of these is the prohibition against attorneys having a financial interest in a case. For example, personal injury trials are costly, sometimes extremely costly, and many clients do not have the money to pay for litigation expenses. Some of these […]

A personal injury attorney practicing in Hartwich, Massachusetts was indicted Friday for stealing settlement monies from his clients. The attorney settled his clients personal injury claims without their permission, and cashed the settlement checks by endorsing both his name and the name of the client on the checks. The settlement checks that he unlawfully endorsed totaled around […]

Attorney advertising is a relatively new phenomenon. Until 1977 lawyers were essentially prohibited from advertising their services to the public. However, the 1977 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in Bates v. State Bar of Arizona changed all that. In Bates, the Court decided that it was not only permissible for attorneys to advertise, but that it was important for attorneys […]