Tom McCutcheon – Attorney at Law
Q: I was in an automobile accident this summer. I have been dealing with the insurance company on my own. I have uninsured motorist coverage. The hospital didn’t bill Medicare. I am at my wits end with this situation and I need the help of an attorney who specializes in personal injury. Does your firm specialize in personal injury?
Charlotte
Moulton, AL
A: We practice accident and injury law. That’s about all we do. We untangle these problems day in and day out.
We can’t say that we “specialize” in personal injury, however much we limit our practice to personal injury.
In Alabama the rules are that lawyers may not claim that they are specialists in any particular field. The reality is that most top lawyers develop an area of expertise. Lawyers are no different than doctors in that they undergo a difficult general studies program, law school or medical school and then go on to typically practice in a pretty specialized area of law or medicine. Doctors undergo a formal training program to become surgeons or dermatologists or internal medical specialists. Lawyers generally don’t although some lawyers do get a further degree in taxation or intellectual property law.
Generally a lawyer will go to work for a firm that handles a particular type of case and they will learn that field of law thoroughly if they are to be successful. That is not to say that there are not lawyers in small towns throughout America who handle a large variety of matters. In larger cities large law firms are broken into different practice areas and then those sections will interact with each other to provide legal knowledge for a large client that may be involved in a complicated legal case.
Lawyers are prohibited from claiming to be the “best”. Lawyers are prohibited from claiming to be “specialists”. If a lawyer in Alabama wants to advertise they have to include a disclaimer in the ad and if they want to include a particularly good result they have to disclose that “every case turns on its own merits, facts, witnesses and that success in one case doesn’t guarantee success in another”.
The rules that prohibit lawyers from proclaiming a specialty are old and are intended to protect the public and rightfully so. Nonetheless, most lawyers will tell you the type of work that they do and what they don’t do.
You should always ask about the lawyers’ experience and success before you hire them.
Buckle up and drive safely.
McCutcheon & Hamner, P.C.
2210 Helton Drive
Florence, Alabama 35630
Telephone: 256-764-0112
Facsimile: 256-764-1124
