The billboards say the same four things. No fee unless we win, millions recovered, available around the clock, we fight for you. That uniformity is not an accident of taste. Contingency advertising has settled into a narrow set of claims because those claims are legally safe and emotionally effective, and the Federal Trade Commission oversees truth in advertising generally, which pushes firms toward promises that are vague enough to be unfalsifiable. The result is that the marketing tells you almost nothing. Everything useful sits one layer down, in the consultation, the staffing, and the paper.
1. Ask who will actually work the file, by name
The person who returns your first call is frequently an intake specialist, not an attorney, and the attorney whose face is on the sign may never read your medical records. Neither fact is scandalous; volume practices run on delegation, and a good paralegal handling records requests is worth more to your file than a partner skimming it once a quarter. What matters is knowing the arrangement before you sign. Ask for the name of the attorney assigned, the name of the case manager, how often files get reassigned, and who you call when the case manager is out.
2. Treat the free consultation as a working meeting
A consultation that consists mainly of sympathy and a signature page has told you nothing. Bring the police report if you have it, the names of every provider you have seen, your insurance declarations page, and any letters already received from the other carrier. Then ask questions with checkable answers: what the liability problems are in this specific set of facts, whether your own underinsured motorist coverage is in play, what the medical picture would need to look like for the case to be worth filing suit, and how long files like yours have taken in this county recently.
3. Weigh experience with your injury type over office proximity
Proximity to your house is close to irrelevant. Almost everything moves by phone, portal, and mail, and you may set foot in the office twice, once to sign and once to collect. What is not irrelevant is whether the firm has handled your particular injury before. Soft tissue claims, surgical spine cases, traumatic brain injury, and dog bites are separate practices wearing the same label, with different experts, different medical vocabulary, and different valuation habits at the carrier. A firm that has litigated your injury type knows which treatment gaps the adjuster will exploit and which ones actually matter.
4. Ask about the court where your case would be filed
Most claims settle, but the settlement number is set by what both sides think would happen at trial in a specific courthouse. Verdict ranges vary enormously across county lines, judges differ in how they manage discovery and pretrial deadlines, and defense counsel in a given venue is a small and known group. An attorney who regularly appears there can tell you which judge your case would likely draw and what the local jury pool tends to do with a claim like yours. One who has never filed there is guessing, competently perhaps, but guessing.
5. Read the fee agreement as a document, not a formality
The percentage is the least interesting part. Look for whether the fee is calculated before or after case costs come off the top, because the difference is real money. Look for the tiered rate: many agreements raise the percentage once suit is filed, or once a case is set for trial, and you want to know the trigger. Look at how costs are handled if the case is lost, whether the firm charges interest on advanced costs, what happens if you discharge the firm midstream, and whether the agreement covers appeals.
6. Check how liens and disbursement are described
The gap between the settlement figure and the check you deposit is filled by health insurance subrogation, Medicare or Medicaid conditional payments, medical provider liens, and case costs. A firm worth hiring will explain in the first meeting that these exist and that reducing them is part of the work, and the fee agreement will say who negotiates them. Ask to see a sample settlement statement, a blank one, showing every line an actual disbursement includes. Firms that do this routinely produce it without hesitation, which is itself the answer you were looking for.
Two or three consultations cost you an afternoon each and nothing else. The firms that answer specifically, name the people who will touch the file, and hand over the fee agreement to read at home rather than sign at the table tend to be the same firms that answer the phone in month seven.