Wednesday, June 6, 2012

"Why Don't You Care About What Happened?"

Our friend and neighbor was involved in an auto accident in Canton recently. This morning I spoke to her husband while walking my awesome "Heinz 57" mixed mutt Shepard. Sarcastically, he asked me why I didn't seem to care what happened to his wife. "We're getting all kinds of letters and DVD's from accident attorneys all over Ohio who are really concerned and want justice for us and we got nothing from you, so I suppose you don't really care about us!"

After we laughed about that, it confirms what I've known to be true for a long time after over twenty years of representing personal injury clients in Ohio: most people are offended by the barrage of solicitation letters they receive after an auto accident. Whether it's a fender bender or a tragedy involving serious injury or death, within days of a crash their mailbox is stuffed like a sausage casing about ready to split. This observation is usually followed by the usual remarks about us being "ambulance chasers" or "parasites" (I could go on with other perjorative phrases but I'll stop there).

Why do firms do this? Because it works well enough to sustain them continuing to do it. And it's cheaper than TV or radio I guess.

So put me in the category of one of those accident attorneys who "don't care" enough to send that stuff. But that's OK. Our phone still rings. And I sleep well at night (except when the dog decides to lap about a half a gallon of water from his special "night" bowl in the bathroom...)

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