Tom McCutcheon – Attorney at Law
I read a comment in the newspaper where a person said they don’t like lawyer advertisements on television. They went further to say they would never hire a lawyer that advertised on television. I don’t like these commercials either.
The fact is that we advertise as a personal injury firm. We don’t offer a full range of services because we believe it is in our clients’ best interest for us to focus on a single area of the law and try to be very good in that area of the law.
When I first started practicing law, the idea was that a law firm would take care of the entire needs of an entire family. That would include divorces, adoptions, Wills and Trusts, business formation and routine criminal matters. When someone in that family would get hurt, the lawyer that took care of that family would get that case and make good money off of it. Back then injuries were typically valued at three times the medical bills and injury cases were a lot easier.
In the infinite wisdom of our Legislature, the law is now that if someone is injured through no fault of their own in a car wreck, the jury cannot learn that the other driver has insurance but the jury does get to learn that the injured party had health insurance to pay their bills. A good defense lawyer wants the jury to know that Blue Cross Blue Shield paid the bills. Some jurors still think that the bills are what you base the value of the case on without consideration of the injury and how it affects the injured person.
In on-the-job injury cases, for example, we all know how hard it would be for a carpenter who lost a hand to earn a living. That’s a job that simply requires good use of both hands. Again, the Legislature changed the law. All that carpenter can get now is 200 weeks of two-thirds pay as a “scheduled injury”. Before the change, an injured worker could choose between how the injury affected their earning capacity and the schedule of injuries.
The law of personal injury has become so complex that it is better to hire a lawyer that knows the law and has presented similar cases to judges and juries because the presentation of a case requires its own set of skills.
While I don’t like lawyer advertising and certainly don’t like paying for it, the fact is no one can be good at everything. We are personal injury trial lawyers and if we don’t advertise that fact, then how would someone know to meet with us or ask their friends and neighbors about us?
Buckle up and drive safely.
McCutcheon & Hamner, P.C.
2210 Helton Drive
Florence, Alabama 35630
Telephone: 256-764-0112
Facsimile: 256-349-2529
