How this works, and what we do with what you tell us

The question most people have before they type anything is not how a matching service works. It is whether their current law firm is going to find out they were here. So that is the part this answers first, along with everything else that happens between reading a page and sitting down with a different attorney.

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What happens, in order

1. You read the page that answers your question. Every legal statement on this site carries the rule, statute or decision behind it, cited by number, so you can check it against the source instead of taking a website's word for it. Most people who leave at this step leave because they found out the answer is better than they feared, which is a fine reason to leave.
2. You tell us what is happening in your case. What the injury was, roughly when, where in Florida, what stage the case is at, and what you have signed. No documents are uploaded, and you are not asked to describe the facts of the accident in detail. The point is to know whether a participating attorney handles this kind of case and can take it on at this stage.
3. We check that this is a case the panel can actually help with. Some requests are turned away at this point — the wrong state, the wrong kind of case, a release already signed. A person who is told no is told why, in writing, and the reason is never that we decided the case is not worth enough.
4. What you told us goes to a participating firm that handles that kind of case where you are. Not a ranking, not a score, not a recommendation — the reason it cannot be a recommendation is Rule 4-7.22(d)(11). You are told the name of that firm and the city, town or county of its office at the time the connection is made, which is what Rule 4-7.22(d)(10) requires.
5. The firm contacts you, because sending the request is how you asked to be contacted. You start it either way: nothing leaves this service until you send it or you call, and your current firm is told nothing at any point.
6. You talk to the firm. That conversation is where your actual contract gets read, by an attorney, out loud, with the numbers in it. Bring the fee agreement, the Statement of Client’s Rights you signed when you hired the first firm, and anything that firm has sent you since.
7. You decide. If you hire the new firm, the firms handle the mechanics of the handoff between them. If you do not, nothing has changed, and nobody tells your current firm that you talked to anyone.

What we ask you, and why each answer matters

None of it is curiosity. Each answer decides whether there is a participating attorney who can take the case, and the request is short because a long form is how people get screened out for the wrong reasons.

What is never asked: your Social Security number, your immigration status, your medical records, how much you think the case is worth, or anything about your current attorney beyond the stage of the case and what you have signed.

Who sees what you tell us

This is the part people are right to ask about, so here it is plainly.

• Your current law firm: nothing. No notice, no verification call, no request for a file. If you decide to change firms, the new firm handles that, and it happens after you have hired it, not before.
• Participating attorneys: what you entered, and only after you ask to be contacted. A participating attorney does not get a list of people who filled out a form and did not ask for a call.
• The Florida Bar: the names and Florida bar membership numbers of participating attorneys, at least once a year, because Rule 4-7.22(d)(5) requires a qualifying provider to file exactly that. Your name is not in that report, and nothing about your case is.
• Everyone else: nobody. Your information is not sold, not traded to other marketers, and not used to build a list.

One more thing worth knowing, because it explains the shape of the whole service. A Florida lawyer may not send a written communication to a prospective client about a specific matter when the lawyer “knows or reasonably should know that the person to whom the communication is directed is represented by a lawyer in the matter” — Rule 4-7.18(b)(1)(B). Almost everyone reading this is represented by a lawyer right now. That is why no attorney here contacts anyone first, and why every conversation has to start with you asking for it.

What we turn away

A matching service that accepts everything is a lead broker. These requests are declined, and the person is told why:

• Matters outside Florida. The panel is Florida only.
• Matters outside injury law — criminal, family, immigration, bankruptcy, employment, probate. A person asking about one of those is better served by a referral source that actually covers it, and is told so rather than connected to an attorney who does not handle it.
• Cases where a release has already been signed. Once a settlement has been signed and the release delivered, there is usually nothing left for a new attorney to take over. That is not a judgment about the case; it is what the signature did.
• Requests that are really a fee dispute with a former firm and nothing else. The Florida Bar runs a fee arbitration program for that under Chapter 14 of its rules, and it is the right place for it.
• Anyone asking us to tell them what to do. There is no attorney here to give that answer. The honest response is to connect you with one, or to tell you that this is not the service for the question.

What is never a reason to turn a case away: how large the recovery might be. A matching service paid a flat fee has no stake in the size of anyone’s case, which is the whole reason the fee is flat. How we get paid sets that out in full.

What happens after you talk to a firm

The conversation with the attorney is where the real answers come from, because the attorney can read your contract and this site cannot. What a first conversation usually covers:

• What your fee agreement with the current firm actually says, including the maximum fee in it — which is the ceiling on what a discharged firm can recover, under Rosenberg v. Levin, 409 So. 2d 1016, 1017 (Fla. 1982).
• Whether anything in the case is time-sensitive right now.
• What the new firm would do first, and in what order.
• How the old firm’s claim for its work would be handled, and out of what money.
• What the new firm’s own fee agreement says, which you are entitled to read before signing anything.

If you hire the new firm, it sends the notice to the old firm and asks for the file. You are not the one who has to make that phone call. If you do not hire anyone, the matter stays exactly where it was.

Where the answer comes from

• Why no attorney contacts you first: Rule Regulating The Florida Bar 4-7.18(b)(1)(B) — written communication to a prospective client is prohibited where the lawyer knows or reasonably should know the person is already represented in the matter.
• Why you are told the office location: R. 4-7.22(d)(10) — the provider must affirmatively disclose the location of a bona fide office by city, town or county at the time the match is made.
• Why there is no recommendation: R. 4-7.22(d)(11) — the provider may not use a name or communicate in any way that could lead prospective clients to reasonably conclude it is a law firm or directly provides legal services.
• Who gets reported to the Bar: R. 4-7.22(d)(5) — names and Florida bar membership numbers of participating lawyers, on no less than an annual basis.
• Why the fee is flat: R. 4-7.22(d)(2) and R. 4-5.4(a), with the Comment to R. 4-7.22 on improper division of fees.
• The cap on a discharged firm’s recovery: Rosenberg v. Levin, 409 So. 2d 1016, 1017 (Fla. 1982).
• Fee disputes with a former firm: Chapter 14, Rules Regulating The Florida Bar — grievance mediation and fee arbitration.

• What this service is and is not — the limits, in plain language.
• How we get paid — the flat fee, and the rule that requires it.
• Can you change attorneys in the middle of a Florida injury case? — the right itself.
• How to change injury lawyers, step by step — the legal mechanics, not the service mechanics.
• If you change lawyers, do you pay two attorney fees? — the arithmetic.