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Michael Helfand

Winning An Illinois Airbag Lawsuit

We have all heard about the possible damages that airbags can cause when deployed during an accident. However, how do you know if your injury because of the airbag should be considered for a lawsuit? How do you know if you will win if you file?

Answering the second question is much easier, so we will start there. You don’t know for sure you will ever win any lawsuit. There are too many variables in any given legal action to guarantee a win. If an attorney promises you a hands down victory, they are probably lying.

The majority of airbags are safe and operate effectively. Airbags are considered a supplemental device to aid in the safety of passengers in a vehicle. They include crash sensors that will deploy the airbag upon impact. Since they were first installed in the 1990’s, airbags have been attributed to saving approximately 25,000 lives. They have also unfortunately been attributed to the deaths of almost 300 people and injuries to countless others.

There are several injuries a person could sustain due to an airbag deployment or defective deployment. Those could include things from minor burns and hearing loss to major injuries like blindness and broken bones, or even death. In order to determine if you have a good case, unfortunately you have to look at the severity of the injury. If an airbag deployed correctly and as a result, you had bruising and a small laceration that healed without incident, you probably don’t have a substantial case.

However, if an air bag failed to deploy, deployed incorrectly or if a defective airbag caused you major medical issues, you should speak to an attorney to go over your options. Compensation in a lawsuit involving an air bag can include payment of medical expenses, pain and suffering and other damages. If a death occurred due to an airbag not going off, the family may have the right to file a wrongful death action.

One important thing to remember about an accident involving an airbag, is that to file a lawsuit, and prove the defect or non-deployment, you must supply the actual proof. Without the proof of the defect, your case will surely fail. If you are ever involved in a car accident, do not let anyone take or junk your car. While in some instances, pictures may be helpful, having the actual vehicle available for tests to be conducted, and evidence to be collected from could mean the difference between winning and losing your case or even having a lawsuit filed at all.

Hopefully you will never be in the situation that you need to speak to an attorney regarding an accident involving an injury from an airbag, however if you are make sure you speak to an experienced Illinois attorney to go over all of your options. If you would like to talk to one of our lawyers about a case for free, call us any time at (312) 346-5320.

Illinois Divorce – The Stages You Will Go Through

To some people, divorce can be as hard to deal with as a death. After all, it is a death of a relationship, so it does make sense that the stages of grief for the time during and after a divorce are similar to those of the death of a loved one. However, what happens when one person is less affected by those stages?

The first emotional stage of divorce is denial. “We’re not broken, just bent” are the lyrics to a popular song that comes to mind when speaking about denying the end of a marriage. This is what happens when one person denies the marital issues and believes wholeheartedly that they can work it out. During this stage, the party in denial may do things to hinder a divorce going forward like refusing to accept service of legal documents, or denying the issues to friends and family members which brings us to the next stage.

Anger and resentment is the second emotional stage in a divorce. This is by far the worst stage. Once a person has gone through the denial stage, an anger takes over. You may remember this stage if you ever saw the movie “Waiting to Exhale.” In this scene, Angela Bassett rips all of her soon to be ex-husbands belongings down from the closet, wheels them out to the front yard in a wagon and dumps the items into his car. She then sets everything on fire. When the fire department shows up and says “I’m sorry ma’am, you are only allowed to burn trash in your yard,” she calmly lights a cigarette and says, “It is trash” and walks away. Yes, the blind rage of realizing you have been left behind in a divorce can cause a person to do some pretty insane things.

The third emotional stage of divorce is bargaining. This can be a very dangerous stage because the emotional whirlwind is just starting to catch the person being left, and those emotions can start to bring the person down. During the bargaining stage a person may be prone to say things like “I can change if you don’t leave me” or “I’ll agree to whatever you want me to do, just don’t leave.” This stage is especially hard because it exposes a person’s confidence or lack thereof. This makes it very easy to take advantage of the situation. A person might do things like request full custody, raise alimony or child support, or even hand over the keys to family home all in an attempt to rectify whatever the problem was to make the divorce happen.

The fourth stage of emotions is depression. Once a person’s lack of confidence is exposed during the anger and bargaining stage, they become raw. Everything about the situation hurts. They may lock themselves in a bedroom and cry for a few weeks, or they may result to using drugs or alcohol to help ease the pain. Both of these can be very bad during a divorce proceeding as they may also be doing things like ignoring the children and other household responsibilities, simply because it is just too hard to cope with.

The fifth and final stage of emotions during a divorce is acceptance. This is the clarity stage. The stage where the person looks in the mirror and says, “I’ve got this and I deserve to be happy.” During this stage, if the divorce hasn’t been finalized, the person may look at their ex and decide to truly stand up for themselves. They may take back that family home or even see through clear eyes that full custody is simply not reasonable. Another way a person may express the final stage of acceptance is by changing their hair or appearance, losing weight, perhaps even sticking a toe back into the dating pool.

Divorce is one of the hardest things adults will have to go through. It is not only difficult because of the emotional trauma caused in this situation but also because you have to be able to find the balance of your own feelings not affecting the children. If you are stuck in a sticky divorce and need legal help, the best thing to do is to contact a local attorney who specializes in divorce and family law. Call us at (312) 346-5320 if you’d like to just ask questions or get a referral.

Are You Really Hiring A Chicago Law Firm?

When I was younger, I assumed that if you hired a lawyer, you were also hiring everyone that they worked with. Why else would a group of people share an office together and represent themselves as one big firm if it wasn’t the case?

What I’ve learned is that a lot of times, law firms are essentially a group of individuals under one banner, but not really a partnership. It’s similar I’ve learned to a lot of doctor groups in that they essentially “eat what they kill.” In other words, it’s not a collaboration, but instead they make money off the cases that they work on. So they end up with a motivation to work on certain cases over others because their hard work only pays off if they collect a lot of money.

I’ve know this about doctors for a while, but only recently learned this is also true for lawyers. It came to my attention when a top Chicago personal injury attorney left his firm for another firm of great reputation. I wondered why he would make what is at best a lateral move and that’s when I discovered that he wouldn’t really be working for the new firm as much as he would be trying to make more money off of the cases that he generates.

It’s financially sensible for the attorneys and doctors, but not so great for the clients and patients. For doctors, while the ones I know still talk about cases with their “partners” when asked, they also don’t worry about anything other than their own patient list. The same holds true for lawyers, but I think it’s worse in those cases. Let me explain.

Lawyers get paid a salary and also a percentage on the cases they bring in and the cases that they work on. If you are a personal injury lawyer and have a case that you think is worth $3 million, that means the lawyer fees would be worth $1 million. If you bring in more lawyers to work on the case, it’s better for the case and better for the client. But to do that, you have to give up a good chunk of your fee. In other words, by doing what is best for the client you might cost yourself $100,000.00 or more.

I’m sure in some of these fake partnerships there are lawyers who do the right thing every time. I’m also sure that there are many who don’t. There are a lot of stories around town of law partners who hate each other, but stay together because their firm name has brand value which they don’t want to lose. Before you hire a firm, especially if you have a major injury case or something complex that will require multiple lawyers like a truck accident, verify who will be working on your case and if the firm is really a firm.

Illinois Car Accident Law – When You Are Being Sued

We typically only help people who were injured in car accident cases, so I’m going to start out with the caveat that we can’t help you find an attorney to defend you and what I’m saying is general advice.

Now that I have the geeky lawyer disclaimer stuff out of the way …

If you get in to a car accident and are at fault (usually known because you get a ticket) or someone else thinks you are at fault, they or their insurance company typically has two years to sue you for personal injury and five years for property damage with some exceptions.

You might get in to an accident and not hear anything on the case for almost two years. Then suddenly a sheriff will appear at your door and serve you with a summons that says you are being sued. It might make you freak out, especially if you’ve never, like most people, been involved in a lawsuit before.

So what should you do?

If you had insurance on the day of the accident, you should call them ASAP and let them know about the lawsuit. It doesn’t matter if you are no longer with that insurance company. If they covered you on the day of the accident, they cover you for the lawsuit.

For 99% of insured people the next thing to do will be just wait. Usually the case resolves itself between the lawyers. You don’t have to hire your own lawyer, the insurance company will provide one for you. They may not be as accessible as you’d prefer, but they will be there for your deposition if that happens and anything else big that comes up.

If you don’t carry a lot of insurance and/or you badly injured someone, you might want to get your own lawyer in case the claim goes above your policy limits. That said, in most cases we see, the policy limits are usually it and they won’t go after your personal assets. No guarantee of that of course.

If you didn’t have insurance on the day of the accident, you are on the hook for everything and may have your license suspended if you don’t pay. That includes having to pay a lawyer by the hour to defend you which can be cost prohibitive if you lose and of course any judgment or settlement against you. So the moral of the story is that if you don’t have insurance, you better get some. And remember, if you are driving someone else’s car, you are probably not covered under their policy or your own.

Illinois Law When Your Cell Phone Gets Spammed

Your cell phone rings, you look over and see the dreaded “unknown caller” show up on caller ID. Thanks to a recently written opinion, those phone calls to your cellphone will no longer be allowed at all. In addition, it enables the go ahead to pursue class action lawsuits against those companies who break the law.

Back in 1991, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act was put into place (TCPA). The TCPA made it illegal for people to receive robo calls to their landline phone numbers without prior consent. However, as a stipulation, the FCC regulations allow for tax-exempt organizations such as political surveys, etc. to continue making those prerecorded calls. In 1991, the use of cell phones was slim to none. According to InfoPlease.com (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933563.html) there were only 7,557,148 cell phone subscribers in 1991 opposed to the current approximately 262 Million users. Needless to say, the call to apply this law to cell phones wasn’t needed in 1991 the way it has been needed today.

Currently, there is a huge population of Americans who no longer have a landline home phone, and primarily use their cell phones. In the recently handed down opinion, the FCC exemptions do not apply, but the rules for a landline do apply for a cell phone.

This all was brought to light thanks to the more than one million people who received telephone calls from people claiming to be Political Opinion of America, in an attempt to show their non-exempt status. During these calls, people were offered a free cruise. They would only have to pay for the taxes and port fees and gratuity. However, if they wanted an upgraded cruise experience, they simply needed to tour a timeshare facility. After listening to the recorded calls, it is evident that this had nothing to do with Political Opinions and everything to do with soliciting new business for a timeshare company.

There are certain factors to the TCPA everyone should be aware of. One of which is that it is prohibited to auto dial, or prerecord non-emergency calls to cell phones unless the caller has prior consent from the person receiving the call. TCPA violations can be a big deal. Violations provide damages of $500 per violation, and if it can be proven that the violation was willful or knowingly done, the damages awarded could be up to 3 times the original amount. Meaning, these calls simply are not allowed to your cell phone without prior consent.

If you believe you have a TCPA violation there are a few things to keep in mind, the burden of proof will lie on you to prove your lack of prior express consent. Other infractions include excessive phone calls (more than four calls a day from the same debt collector), the use of an auto dialer or computer dialer, calling you at work or revealing a debt to a third party are all part of violations.

If you believe you have a TCPA violation, the best thing to do is speak to a competent attorney to discuss your options. If you’d like our help in finding an attorney with a track record of success in these cases, call us at (312) 346-5320 or fill out our form on our website.

Illinois Probate Law – When The Caretaker Gets It All

In 2015, Illinois signed a new portion of the Probate Act. This new portion was designed to be a tool to help avoid elder abuse situations. However, this new portion of the law opens the door for meaningful transfers to possibly be voided too. How does this new law affect your estate planning and end of life documentation planning?

When most people think of elder abuse, they think about the awful videos online showing elderly men and women in nursing care being physically neglected or abused. Most people don’t automatically think of the mental abuse that happens often at the hands of the caretakers for the elderly.

A good example of non-physical abuse is a caretaker taking advantage of Aunt Sally by manipulating her into adding themselves to Aunt Sally’s will, in an attempt to gift or transfer property to the caretakers upon Aunt Sally’s death. This example is exactly why the new law was put in to effect; to prevent those transfers from happening.

The new law states that if a caregiver is transferred or given property that is valued at over $20,000, it is presumed that the transfer is void if contested by a family member. There are some major issues with that. Say for instance Aunt Sally has been with Ray since her husband died 35 years ago, but they never legally got married. Aunt Sally’s son has contested that Ray be able to receive the gifts and transfers she wanted Ray to have according to her estate planning documents and will. Because the house and other assets are valued above $20,000, Ray will have to fight Aunt Sally’s son in court to prove that there was nothing fraudulent about the transfer of property. To add a little salt to that injury, if by some weird chance the court does rule in favor of Aunt Sally’s son, Ray will also be held accountable for both his attorney fees as well as Aunt Sally’s son’s attorney’s fees.

So who is considered a caretaker? The answer may surprise you. Of course, if the person receiving the transfer or gift is a family member defined as a spouse, child, grandchild, sibling, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, first cousin or parent, they are then considered simply a “family member”. However, a trusted friend, neighbor, boyfriend or girlfriend, or teacher is considered a “caretaker”, there invoking the rule. The doorway is opened by the family member “status” of the person who is receiving the gift.

There are many ways to go about spotting if this rule will be an issue, and how you can prevent this rule from being an issue when preparing your will and estate planning documents. One of those things you can do as a preventative measure, is interviewing Aunt Sally privately to find out if she is feeling bullied into the decision to transfer the property to the caretaker. This interview could be taped or recorded to memorialize the interview. At minimum, an attorney should document notes of the interview that summarize the facts and circumstances as to why Aunt Sally wants to leave her house or other valuable property to her caretaker instead of her son. There is a document that can be drafted by an attorney called a “Certificate of Independent Review” which will state at the time of creating the documents with Aunt Sally, the attorney took specific consideration and acknowledgment that leaving her house to Ray could be seen as fraudulent, but it in fact was not. She 100% stood behind her decision at the time the documents were created. Another third option, would be for the attorney to have Aunt Sally sign an affidavit that states her circumstances and intentions from her point of view.

As you can see, this new “presumptively void transfers” law isn’t just the heavy hitting tool that lawmakers thought it would be. This new law can potentially deem legitimate gifts and transfers void as well. Attorneys and others who prepare estate planning documents need to be aware and plan the careful documentation to protect the wishes of your loved one, as well as the integrity of the will.

If you would like to contest a will, there are time limits for doing so. If you need help in finding the right lawyer for your case, call us any time at (312) 346-5320 or click here to email us.

The most important part of an Illinois wrongful death lawsuit

I’ve experienced the sudden death of people that I care about greatly and I’ve talked to thousands of people like you who have lost a loved one through an accident or medical malpractice.

When someone you care about passes away, especially if it’s sudden, it’s hard to think straight. You have people to call. You are devastated. Funeral arrangements need to be made.

You might be thinking about a lawsuit, but based on my experience not everyone is thinking about how to win that lawsuit.

While every case is different, the most common mistake people make is failing to have an autopsy. You can suspect why someone died or know in your heart that something went wrong, but if you can’t prove it then you will have a hard time winning your case.

For example, let’s say your husband went in to the doctor with severe pain in their leg and no history of an accident or injury. The doctor gives him pain meds. Two days later he’s back in the office because the pain has gotten worse and moved. It’s a classic sign of a blood clot. Yet we are involved in cases where the doctor has not done any further tests to rule out a blood clot or embolism. Three days later your spouse drops dead.

You might be told it was likely a blood clot, but without an autopsy it would be very hard to prove it. It’s your job to prove what happened at trial and if you can’t do that you won’t win your case.

In a car accident case the need for an autopsy isn’t always as great or so it seems. But when you are dealing with a death you can increase your damages by showing that they were otherwise healthy and had a long life expectancy by performing an autopsy.

Many times a hospital will volunteer to have an autopsy performed. Other times they will tell you it’s not necessary, especially if it might prove that their doctors messed up. You have a right to get a private autopsy and the Illinois wrongful death law firms that we recommend have experience it getting these set up for you.

I certainly get that an autopsy is the last thing you are thinking of at a time like this, but it truly can be the difference between knowing in your heart that something happened and actually being able to prove it in a court of law.

If you have questions about Illinois wrongful death law or would like our help in finding a lawyer, fill out our contact form or call us at (312) 346-5320. We help everywhere in Illinois.

Illinois Car Accident Law – Why Is The Claim Denied?

If you are in a car accident in Illinois that is clearly not your fault, you might be stunned when the insurance company for the other party or even for you, denies your case without reason. It shouldn’t happen, but does all the time.

The paraphrased question I get all the time is “How can the insurance company deny my claim?” Let’s look at some of the most popular reasons.

– This is how insurance companies make money. They have done studies that in a nutshell say that if they can wrongfully deny three out of ten claims and get away with it, it will save them hundreds of millions of dollars. So when you’ve been rear-ended at a stoplight they will tell you with a straight face that it was your fault somehow. If they frustrate you in to doing nothing, they win. And that’s their plan.
– They are a sub-standard insurance company. You’ve seen the awful TV commercials where companies promise you insurance no matter how bad your driving record is. These operations are as terrible as some of their drivers. They won’t return phone calls, they’ll tell you insurance was cancelled when it wasn’t, they’ll offer only pennies on the dollar, etc. You almost have to sue when they are involved because otherwise they take the approach that it doesn’t cost them money to ignore the case.
– You don’t have an injury or it’s really minor. It’s actually harder to get a settlement when there is only property damage to a car than when there’s a major injury. The insurance company knows that lawyers in Illinois who handle car accident cases work on a contingency basis (meaning they only get paid if they win), they won’t usually get involved in very minor or car damage cases only. That’s quite honestly because there is not much money to be made in those situations.
– You were at fault. Sometimes you think you did nothing wrong, but the truth is there are facts which show you were at least 50% at fault such as turning left in front of a car that is speeding toward you. If there is any reason to deny your case even the good insurance companies will do so.
– Y<strong>our coverage has lapsed or the other driver wasn’t insured. It could be that the other party was at fault, but they weren’t covered under the vehicle that they were driving. Remember, these lawsuits and claims are against the driver who is at fault so you might be forced to sue them directly.

There are other reasons of course like your file getting lost or them waiting on a police report, but these are the big ones. If you’d like to ask us questions about a car accident or want an attorney referral, call us for a free consult at (800) 517-1614 or fill out our contact form and we’ll call you. We help everywhere in Illinois.

Hiring The Right Illinois Truck Accident Lawyer

You’d think that who you hire to represent you in a legal matter can make a difference, but it’s not unreasonable to think that most lawyers would get something close to the same result. Unfortunately that line of thinking is wrong.

The best lawyer for your case could actually not only be the difference between winning and losing; it could also be a difference of millions of dollars. There is no better example of that in trucking accident cases in Illinois.

We recently received a call from a woman who sadly lost her husband in a trucking death when he was hit by another semi truck driver. She was looking for probate help, but we began to discuss the reason her husband passed away. Sadly he was hit by a driver who fled the scene.

The lawyer she was going to hire told her the “great news” that she could collect on the uninsured motorist’s policy from her husband’s employer. That amount is believed to be one million dollars and no doubt that is a lot of money. But the case could be worth many millions more.

It doesn’t sound like this lawyer handles a lot of truck accident cases because he was going to leave it at that. I recommended that she talk to a Chicago trucking injury law firm who has a long track record of investigating and handling these tricky cases. Right away they hired an investigator to access security footage of the weigh station that this woman’s husband had recently stopped at. If the truck driver who hit him followed the law and also stopped we can likely find out who it was.

The point of this is that instead of settling for the policy, they now likely will be able to go after the driver. This will likely lead to a difference of many millions of dollars. Truck accident law firms with real experience also have an ability to find out who really owns a truck and go after them. Many trucks are falsely owned by shell companies as a way of hiding the true owner and reducing their legal liability. If you can’t find them, you can’t sue them. There is a way of untangling their lies, but if you don’t know how to do it or won’t put in the effort, you are no good to the client.

Bottom line is that no matter the area of law, a good attorney leaves no stone unturned and tries to get the best result for their client. Those are the type of lawyers we recommend. If you’d like our help in finding the best attorney for your cases, call us at (312) 346-5320 or fill out our form to the right. It’s free and confidential.

Is Legal Zoom Giving Legal Advice?

It’s a pretty well settled principle that non-lawyers can’t give legal advice in Illinois. I think it makes sense to most people as you want to have some belief that the advice they are getting is for sure correct. It’s a way of protecting the public and also preventing false information from getting out there.

Legal Zoom is a heavily marketed company that I’ve always understood to be a place where you can try to print off legal forms to do things yourself. It was founded by one of OJ Simpson’s defense attorneys and I assume it’s successful with all of the money that it spends on advertising. Next to erectile dysfunction and daily fantasy games, it feels like Legal Zoom is the third most common advertiser.

They can sell legal forms even if much of what they sell can be downloaded for free on the internet. Apparently some of what they provide is the opportunity to have forms reviewed by a lawyer (which seems to defeat the whole purpose), but they also provide instructions on the forms themselves.

If those instructions are written by lawyers in the state that they apply to then they seem permissible. On the other hand, if there are any non lawyers who own legal zoom, they might be illegally receiving compensation for giving legal advice.

Whatever the situation is, the big problem I have with anyone relying on written advice is that it doesn’t consider your unique situation. This came up recently when a woman called me after downloading divorce forms from this site and reading about what to do with them. According to her they said that there is a two year waiting period to get divorced in Illinois if you have kids.

Technically what she read is correct. The problem is that she read it to mean that she can’t get divorced any time soon. What she didn’t read or didn’t understand was that the waiting period can be waived by both parties to allow for a quicker divorce. She also didn’t understand after reading their advice that the waiting period applied to divorces based on irreconcilable differences. She could plead something else and get divorced sooner even if her spouse didn’t want the divorce to happen.

Look, I’m in favor of anything that can make the legal system cheaper and more accessible for the general public. It’s one reason I created Funded Justice. But what I don’t like is when people get more confused or sold something that they don’t really need.

Legal Zoom needs to decide if it is or isn’t a law firm. If it is, it needs to start acting like one. If it’s not, then it needs to be really careful about the guidance it provides. They may be doing more harm than good. If you’d like to speak with one of our licensed attorneys, call us at (312) 346-5320 or fill out our contact form.

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