There are six major characteristics to consider when you’re looking for a local personal injury attorney. Your lawyer should exhibit these traits:
- Specializes in dealing with personal injury cases
- Capable of getting high settlements and favorable verdicts
- Active in various groups of trial lawyers
- Has multiple credible testimonials and reviews
- Only accepts pay on a contingency basis
- Helpful and engaging online
Let’s examine Magalis Perez-Collazo and see if she meets these criteria.
1. Specialization In Personal Injury Cases
Magalis’ website is very up-front about the fact that she specializes in:
- Car Accidents
- Construction Site Accidents
- Trucking Accidents
This isn’t the longest list of personal injury practice areas, but it’s clear that Magalis specializes in these cases. Additionally, her website claims that her firm has won over 1000 cases. As such, she deserves the first point.
2. History of High Settlements
At the time of this review, we could not find any information about settlements. Her site claims that she’s succeeded in many cases (variously cited as “over 1000” and “over 2000” in the DFW region), and simple probability suggests that at least some of those had high payouts. Unfortunately, without hard numbers, it’s impossible to say for sure. We cannot give Magalis the point for this category.
3. Activity In Associations
Magalis’ website does not report any associations that she is a part of. A search of the Texas Bar (certified 10/5/16 at the time of this review) noted that she has been admitted to the United States District Court for the Northern area of Texas, but had no other courts, groups, or general associations listed.
The fact that no associations are listed does not mean Magalis is not a member of them – but with no evidence that she is, we can’t give her a point for this category.
4. Reviews And Testimonials
Magalis’ website does have a section for reviews, but none were present at the time we checked.
A search of other review locations (Avvo.com, Yelp.com, etc.) could not locate any other reviews. It’s a little surprising that a lawyer claiming over a thousand successful cases doesn’t have any reviews. There is no reason to believe she’s lying about her number of cases – some lawyers handle over two hundred cases a year, and at that rate, one or two thousand cases is easy to reach – but it is a little unusual.
The most likely reason for this is that Magalis simply hasn’t asked people to review her. Regardless, since there are no credible reviews available, we cannot give her a point for this category.
5. Accepts Pay On A Contingency Basis
We could not find any information on Magalis’ actual fee basis. However, her website does note that she accepts four major credit cards (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover).
Unfortunately, this does not provide any useful information on her payment plans – some contingency fees are paid directly to lawyers by the source of a settlement’s funds, while other settlements are paid entirely to the client (who then pays their lawyer).
As with previous sections, the absence of information means we cannot give Magalis a point in this area.
6. Helpful And Engaging Online
Magalis’ website does not have a blog, nor could we locate any links to social media accounts. We did find a few older accounts with the same name (on YouTube and Google+, neither particularly active), but we could not determine whether these belong to Magalis. Since we could not find any activity here, we cannot give Magalis a point.
Overall, Magalis met 1 of our 6 recommended traits. The number of cases she’s won is a strong point in her favor, and that alone makes her worth calling for a quote if you need a personal injury attorney. Unfortunately, her website did not provide as much information as it should have, and other resources couldn’t fill in the gaps.
Personally, we’d recommend to Magalis that she either update her website or hire someone to do it for her. The emphasis of the update should be on detailing settlements, describing her fees in more detail, listing any lawyer associations she’s a part of, and soliciting reviews from recent clients. This would help visitors get a better sense of who she is, how her firm works, and how she can help them.
We’d also encourage her to start a blog that potential clients can read to get more information. Even something as simple as one blog a month would provide a better online presence and demonstrate familiarity with the internet-heavy society we live in.
Until and unless that happens, however, we recommend that Magalis be considered a second choice. The exception to this is if you need a Spanish-speaking lawyer – Magalis’ team is bilingual, and the ability to converse fluently outside of English may mean more than any other trait.
