What happens when the lawyer you hire to handle your personal injury case is not licensed in the state where a claim must be brought?
Recently our office was contacted by a potential client who had been “fired” by his former lawyer. The lawyer was not licensed to handle cases in Virginia.
The client’s “offense?” The lawyer couldn’t get the case settled so now he was jumping ship! In other words, the client didn’t do anything wrong EXCEPT not realize that the lawyer he hired wasn’t even legally able to help him file his lawsuit.
To make matters worse, we didn’t accept the case BECAUSE TOO MUCH TIME HAD PASSED. The out of state lawyer had left the client in a real bind.
Lesson: if you have a personal injury case you should only be working with an experienced and LICENSED attorney in the state in which the claim will be filed.
