Determining Liability

Ambulance Chasers

My name's Griffith Tonkin.

I'm one of the partners here at the Arthofer & Tonkin Law Offices.

We're a personal injury law firm.

What that means is we specialize in cases where people have been hurt.

Now, people get hurt in a wide variety of ways.

Sometimes, people make lawyer jokes.

I'm sure you've heard a few good ones.

Sometimes, personal injury lawyers are referred to as ambulance chasers, a pejorative term designed to put down this area of practice.

Today's story is going to be different.

It will be different because it will be a case that we didn't take, but it will illustrate a point that's important for you when you're considering a personal injury attorney.

Vigorously Investigate Your Case

You need an attorney who's going to vigorously and promptly investigate your case and, if necessary, get out from behind the desk, walk around, and see what happened.

We were recently contacted about a child who a falling ladder had hurt.

Well, we went out and looked at the ladder and the situation, but because the child was outside by himself, we couldn't tell exactly what had happened.

He had been hurt pretty seriously, but he couldn't say what had happened.

He was quite young.

So we started canvassing the neighborhood, and by that, I mean literally, I walked up and down the roads over the neighborhood, and I was looking at the houses and for a particular thing.

I was looking for a video camera either associated with the doorbell or on the front of the house.

Ultimately, in this neighborhood, I found two different video cameras.

The homeowners were gracious enough to show us the video footage that their cameras had captured.

We could determine that there was no third party at fault here and that the ladder falling didn't happen because somebody had done something wrong.

So this is the case we couldn't take.

It was a case where we couldn't help this young man who had been seriously injured.

But it's important that you know not only are you dealing with an honest law firm, a good, quality personal injury firm with integrity, that won't just file a shake-down lawsuit that won't be a so-called ambulance chaser.

But also one that will go out and acquire the evidence necessary to know exactly what happened, even if it means determining that that case wasn't right for us.

If you'd like to work with an attorney with these characteristics, call us at the Arthofer & Tonkin Law Offices.