When looking for a local personal injury attorney, there are six characteristics you should pay particularly close attention to. These include:
- Whether or not they specialize in personal injuries
- How capable they are of getting high settlements
- How active they are in groups and organizations
- Whether or not they’re received credible reviews
- Their use of contingency fees
- How active they are online
Let’s see how Windle Turley fits these criteria.
1. Specialization
Windle’s firm specializes in the following areas:
- Catastrophic Injuries
- Civil Rights Violations
- Construction Accidents
- Defective Products
- Medical Malpractice
- Motor Vehicle Accidents
- Sexual Assault (at venues and organizations both within and outside the US)
- Unsafe Premises
- Wrongful Death
A few of these areas stray slightly from personal injuries, but overall, Windle’s firm is focused on the right types of cases. He’s earned his first point from our list.
2. History Of Settlements
We could not locate information on the value of the settlements Windle has made for his clients. The closest thing we could find was a set of significant filings, where there were several cases seeking payments of more than $1,000,000. However, the fact that these payments were sought does not mean they were granted.
Since we have no information on Windle’s history of settlements, we cannot give him a point in this category.
3. Activity In Trial Lawyer Associations
Windle is a member (and occasional leader) of a significant number of groups, including:
- The Texas Trial Lawyers Association
- The Dallas Trial Lawyers Association
- The Institute for Injury Reduction
- The American Association of Justice
- The American Bar Associations
- The American Board of Trial Advocates
- The Attorneys Information Exchange Group
- The Dallas Bar Association
- The Dallas Bar Foundation
- The International Society of Air Safety Investigators
- The National Trial Lawyers’ Top 100 Trial Lawyers
- The Public Justice Foundation
- And More
This is one of the longer lists we’ve seen, and his site lists positions like “former chair,” “former director,” and “founding member” on a frequent basis. This indicates someone who isn’t just part of groups but actively helps to create them on a regular basis. We’d give him two points for this if we could – unfortunately, our review only allows for one point in each category.
4. History of Reviews
We could not locate any client reviews or testimonials on Windle’s site. A search of the internet (including websites like Avvo.com and Yelp.com) also failed to provide reviews for Windle.
We were able to locate reviews of the firm from current and former employees on Glassdoor.com. At the time we checked, there were three reviews – one positive review from August 30, 2017, and two negative reviews from September 29 and October 1, 2015.
The fact that the positive review was more recent suggests that the problems of former employees may have been dealt with. (However, this cannot be definitively proven from the resources available.)
Given the lack of reviews from clients and the small number of reviews from employees, we cannot give Windle a point in this category.
5. Fees
It took some digging to find, but Windle’s website does say that they work on a contingency fee basis. This means you’re only charged when they successfully earn compensation for you. Since he meets this criterion, he gets the point.
6. Activity Online
Windle’s website does have a blog, but the most recent post we saw was from December 2016. We also located some social media icons at the top of the site, although the graphics did not display properly. None of these were recently active.
Curiously, Windle’s Facebook page did have some reviews on it. However, the part of the website they pointed to does not exist. It was nice to see that some reviews exist after all, but they should be displayed on his site instead of hidden on social media.
Given the lack of recent activity on his website and through social media, we cannot give Windle a point in this category.
Overall, Windle met 3 of our 6 criteria for a personal injury attorney. Beyond the numbers, though, what we saw was a well-respected attorney who’s made some effort to be present online, but ultimately stopped doing so. Irrespective of that, his long history as a lawyer and multiple prestigious positions in organizations suggest that he’s worth considering as a first or second choice.
For a higher rating, we’d recommend that Windle fix the reviews part of his website, provide more information on the settlements he’s been able to win for clients, and resume posting on his blog. Collectively, that would help him demonstrate the kind of credibility and presence that people are looking for in their personal injury attorneys.
