While we were cycling in Florida (and earlier, throughout the Southern Tier) we could not help but noticing billboards put up for legal firms, promising to fight for the victims of accidents. "We will fight for you! " they blared, "If you don't get paid, we don't get paid", they promised. At the time we saw this as a kind of sociological indicator of the extent of the car culture and the well known litigious bent of the people.

After the accident, of course, our view was not quite so academic. Being driven back down to Fort Lauderdale, presumably with my good hand I still managed to snap one more billboard:

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So when the insurance company was uncooperative, I think I may have actually phoned the billboard number. It was just one of a few I checked out. What I found was an automated (like, call centre type) industry that seemed to offer little in terms of compassion or real service. I looked at it a little more, just recently. According to listings on lawyers.com, there are 2,506 personal injury law firms in Florida. These handle vehicle accidents, but also delve into other presumably rich areas, like slip and fall, dog bite, defective products, etc. With access to more data, I would love to see how the per capita rate (about one firm per 8,000 people for Florida) varies by State and into Canada. But I suspect it is high.

Looking through other listings, I came to see that there is a subset of these lawyers that make special claims to being suited for bicycle cases. Typically such lawyers say that they are cyclists, or they or a family member were injured/killed on a bicycle, that they are members of cycling associations, own a bike shop, and so on.

These characteristics seemed like a reasonable way to narrow down the choices. Also, one web site warned that the billboard/TV lawyers were merely mills that would typically accept what the insurance companies offered and did not have the staff to really pursue a court case.

So we chose one that was a cyclist and that claimed to personally handle all cases. As with the rest, the arrangement was a "contingency" fee. That is, for about 33.3% of any ultimate settlement, the lawyer would work without direct charges to us.