There are six major factors you should keep in mind when deciding which local personal injury attorney to hire. These factors include:
- How much they specialize in personal injury cases
- How effective they are at getting high settlements and positive verdicts
- How active they are in associations for trial lawyers
- How many credible reviews they’re received from clients
- Whether or not they work for you on a contingency basis
- How present and active they are online
Let’s see how well David Hart meets these criteria.
1. Specialization
David’s law firm specializes in the following areas:
- Bus Crashes
- Car Crashes
- Child Sexual Abuse
- Construction Injuries
- Defective Equipment Injuries
- FELA Claims
- Motorcycle Wrecks
- Pedestrian Collisions
- Taxi Collisions
- Truck and 18 Wheel Wrecks
- Victims of Drunk Drivers
- Workplace Injuries
- Wrongful Death
This is an outstanding spread of specialties and showcases expertise with personal injuries both on and off the road. (That’s important – not all personal injury attorneys handle things aside from vehicle collisions.)
Given the apparent scope of expertise, we’re quite comfortable giving David Hart his first point. That said, how does he fare with the rest of these criteria?
2. Record of Settlements
David’s website includes a Case Results area. Unfortunately, you have to click through to find the details of each one, but that’s more of a design quibble than a real problem. Regrettably, most of the case results do not disclose the actual numbers involved, but there are a few points of information we could glean.
First, some of the cases are described as having substantial settlements. Second, the listed activities of clients at the end of the case results are suggestive of larger settlements.
For example, a 54-year-old who suffered a workplace injury was described as “being able to purchase a new home better suited to his disabilities, to pay for his ongoing medical treatment, and to provide income for his family since he can no longer work.” A small settlement would not be enough to accomplish that.
In another case, a 32-year-old man was struck by a train after the warning system failed, and was left with permanent physical and mental disabilities. David won a settlement that allows the client to financially support himself and receive medical treatment (which he may need for the rest of his life).
We did find one case with a specific number, where the client received $400,000 in their pocket (from a full award of $718,000).
We’d prefer to see more numbers, but based on the descriptions in the case results, we felt that David earned the point in this area.
3. Activity In Trial Lawyer Associations
David has acquired the following Bar admissions:
- TTLA, AAJ, and Tarrant County Trial Lawyers
- Million Dollar Advocates Forum
- The College of Master Advocates and Barristers
- Northeast Tarrant County Bar Association
Also, he is a past president of the Tarrant County Advocates. Aside from bar memberships, he has been admitted to the following courts:
- All State Courts in Texas
- All Districts for the U.S. District Court in Texas
- The Fifth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals
- The U.S. Court of Federal Claims
This is a good set of memberships, allowing David to effectively appeal cases to higher courts if there’s a problem with the initial ruling. We’re quite comfortable giving him a point for his membership in various groups.
4. Testimonials
David’s website does have testimonials, but at the time of writing, the link to the page on the site redirected back to the homepage. Comments listed on other pages include:
- “The Hart Law Firm goes above and beyond.” (John M.)
- “The Hart Law Firm stands by your side.” (Mr. M.)
Since the testimonials are present, David gets the point. However, we’d like to see the website fixed so the testimonial page can be displayed properly.
5. Fee Basis
At the time this review was written, we could not find any information on David Hart’s fees on his website. While it’s quite possible that he works on a contingency basis, that’s the kind of information people should be able to get without needing to contact his office. We decided not to give the point for this category.
6. Rate of Online Activity
David’s website has a sporadically-updated blog, generally getting new posts once every month or two. However, their site also has a collection of more than 250 blog-like library posts, conveniently divided by category so visitors can easily search things. The library is typically updated every few days.
Also, he has links to accounts with Facebook (not particularly active), LinkedIn, and YouTube (a few videos added several years ago). He’s not as active on social media as he could be, but the frequency of library updates on his website is an acceptable alternative. He gets the point here.
Overall, David scored 5/6 points on our list of criteria, and it’s possible that he meets the sixth as well. We recommend considering David if you need help with a personal injury case near Colleyville.