Top 3 Reasons to Hire a Lemon Lawyer
Sometimes, doing a job yourself can help you save a few bucks or a long wait for a professional but with lemon law, there is really no reason to D.I.Y. it. Lemon law claims are technical and time consuming, but you can save your own time, energy, and money by having a professional take care of it FOR FREE. Is it really even a choice?
It is not required to have a lawyer to handle your lemon law claim but it is advisable. So what are the top 3 reasons for hiring a lemon lawyer?
1. Lemon lawyers are free.
In a successful lemon law case, the auto manufacturer must pay your legal fees. It is written into the law. Your attorney should literally send their bill to the auto manufacturer at the end of your case. The idea behind this provision in the law is that consumers should not be prevented from bringing a lemon law claim because they are worried about the cost of legal fees. If that happened, auto manufacturers might never be held accountable for the defective vehicles that they produce. We find that many people are suspicious about how this works so we wrote an article dedicated entirely to fees questions, which you can read here.
This alone is enough reason to hire a lemon lawyer rather than try to handle a lemon law claim yourself. You can get help from someone who is professionally trained and does this everyday, and you do not have to pay for it. You can get someone else to make the phone calls, handle the paperwork, and deal with the lawyers and customer service reps on the other side without any cost to you.
We always recommend that you have a conversation about fees with an attorney before you hire them. The law only makes the auto manufacturer pay your legal fees if you are successful in your lemon law claim, but most lemon lawyers will not take your case if they do not think they can win. Most experienced lemon lawyers will know whether or not you have a strong lemon law case, and will be willing to bear the risk of losing, based on their own knowledge and experience. If a lemon lawyer will not guarantee that you will not be charged any fees, it may be because the lawyer is not confident that they can win.
If you still have questions about fees, check out our fees article or contact one of our experienced lemon law team. We will be happy to reassure you that we will NEVER send you a bill for our fees.
2. Represented plaintiffs get more compensation.
The auto manufacturers that you are up against in a lemon law claim have lawyers. They have TEAMS OF LAWYERS. They have lawyers for the same reason that you should have one – it increases the chances of coming out on top. Research has consistently shown that people who are represented by lawyers in a settlement negotiation or a legal claim win their cases more often, and, when they do win, they tend to get higher rates of compensation. This applies across civil law claims, not just in lemon law. Unfortunately, auto manufacturers are much more likely to lowball an unrepresented complainant, and that person is more likely to unwittingly accept a lowball offer, than an experienced lemon lawyer who knows the claim value and will fight for it.
In lemon law claims, the fee shifting provision that requires auto manufacturers to pay your legal fees makes this an even bigger issue. While you are handling your claim yourself, the auto manufacturer is not concerned about you building up legal fees that they might eventually have to pay. It does not cost an auto manufacturer much to fend off the complaints of a dissatisfied customer. However, when you hire a lemon lawyer, the auto manufacturer has to pay your attorney fees if your claim is successful, and they are immediately more motivated to settle your claim quickly rather than risk building up a large legal bill.
3. Lemon law is technical. Cars are technical.
Laws are not simple. That’s why lawyers spend years at law school and in continuing education to learn their skills, and keep them up to date. And in lemon law, the laws are different in every state. Cars and trucks are complex pieces of electronics and machinery. In a lemon law claim, you want someone who understands the law AND automotives to be able to stand up to the companies that actually design and make these vehicles and their legal teams. An experienced lemon lawyer spends every day analyzing and discussing vehicle defects and lemon law technicalities, and challenging auto manufacturers.
Some people try to handle their own lemon law problems based on the advice and experience of friends, neighbors, family, or even their car dealer. Friends and family may mean well but they should not be your source of advice on technical, legal issues unless they are qualified lemon lawyers, and your car dealer definitely should not. Their problems are different to your problems, and, if they are in a different state, their laws are different too. Even lawyers rarely handle their own legal problems outside of their own area of expertise, and neither should you.
An experienced lemon law attorney knows the lemon law in YOUR state, and has most likely handled cases with the same auto manufacturer, or even vehicles with the same problem as yours. The individual facts of your case, and the law in your state, will affect how your case should be handled and how much compensation you may be able to get. You therefore need to get a professional who will look at your case and advise you about YOUR case, to improve your chances of success and increase your compensation.
If you need an experienced lemon lawyer for advice on your defective vehicle, Timothy Abeel & Associates can help. With offices across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida, California, Ohio, West Virginia, and Texas, we have helped thousands of people with defective vehicles get compensation, a replacement vehicle, or reimbursement of their vehicle purchase price. Contact us today for a free, no-obligation review of your lemon law case.