For anyone looking to hire an attorney, you likely feel overwhelmed by the amount of law firms vying for your attention through advertisements. It may feel impossible to sort through all the noise and find the right lawyer. Deciding who to trust isn’t easy, but following these simple steps toward making an informed choice can make a meaningful difference.
Hiring the wrong attorney—someone who doesn’t possess the specialized knowledge required by your case or someone who does not put clients first—can have lasting consequences. When people need an attorney, they need one who is trustworthy.
For families affected by serious truck accidents, the stakes are especially high. Trucking companies and their insurers often have significant resources and begin protecting their interests immediately after a crash. At the same time, victims and their families may be dealing with catastrophic injuries, mounting medical bills, lost income, or the sudden loss of a loved one.
A truck accident claim isn’t just about recovering compensation. It’s about securing the financial resources needed for medical care, replacing lost income, providing for a family, and rebuilding after a devastating event. Choosing the wrong attorney can leave victims with fewer resources than they need to move forward.
When the stakes are this high, you need to know how to make the best possible decision. Here’s what nobody tells you about hiring a truck accident attorney.
The Trucking and Insurance Companies are Not Your Friends
In my more than 40 years practicing truck accident law, I have learned that no matter what, people who work for the trucking company or the insurance company are not your friends. You cannot trust them. Their goal is to minimize how much they will have to pay for the accident. This makes an already difficult situation worse for the victims, who are simply in need of support. That is why hiring a lawyer makes such a big difference. An experienced truck accident attorney will know how to manage the legal process against the trucking and insurance company so that you get what you deserve. And a good attorney will know how to make you feel supported and looked after.
Legal Advertising Gave People Access to the Court Room. Today, It’s a Flood of Misleading Information
The 1977 Supreme Court case Bates v. State Bar of Arizona changed the legal field by considering attorney advertising protected speech under the First Amendment. The Court held that advertising would provide the public with valuable information about the availability and cost of legal services. They also held that attorney advertising wouldn’t harm the profession or the administration of justice and would make such services more available to more people.
Slowly, legal advertising became widespread. In the last ten years, legal advertising has reached an extreme. Consumers are bombarded with attorneys marketing their services in commercials, billboards, Google ads, city buses—all types of media.
The biggest change, however, is venture capital money that has been poured into the legal field in recent years, especially in personal injury. These are not legal professionals, but people who invest in businesses that will grow their wealth. In the field of personal injury law, venture capitalists create what are called “Lead Generation Companies,” which try and attract injured people to sign up with them, and then they sell that case to an attorney. When our law firm opened in 1999, lead generation companies did not exist.
Lead generation companies are concerning because they prey on people who are unfamiliar with the legal field and take the choice away from the client. Sure, the lead generation company will pair you with a licensed attorney, but will that attorney have the specialized knowledge to handle your case? Will they be someone you trust? If someone is catastrophically injured or if someone tragically lost their life, will the attorney know how to handle high-stakes cases?
A Truck Accident Attorney is Not a Regular Personal Injury Attorney
If you or someone you love was injured in a crash with a commercial vehicle, the situation you are facing is more complicated than if you had been involved in a crash with a passenger vehicle. For one, semi-trucks are extremely heavy, weighing up to eighty thousand pounds, and can cause serious damage in a crash. Additionally, these cases are distinct because you are forced to deal with a trucking company and their aggressive legal team.
The main reason why truck accident law is a separate field that requires specialized knowledge is because the trucking industry comes with its own set of rules. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations are a set of rules that trucking companies, drivers, and everyone else involved must follow. These regulations exist to ensure the trucks we share the road with are not subjecting us to unsafe situations.
A regular personal injury attorney may not know how to identify all the parties involved in a truck accident case, or how to properly depose them. Victims of truck crashes need someone with experience in trucking law who understands load securement, pre-trip inspections, brokers and shippers, and all the other industry-specific factors that could have played a role in the crash.
How to Spot an Experienced Lawyer (Using the Internet)
When you set out to hire a lawyer, the first step is to make sure that any attorney you are considering is qualified. There are many helpful resources on the internet, from third party organizations like Martindale-Hubbell to Google reviews. Martindale-Hubbell has been around since 1868, with a core mission of providing people with the contact information of reliable law firms. The site provides scores for each attorney and will award the highest-ranking lawyers with the “AV Preeminent” plaque. Other organizations include Super Lawyers, National Trial Lawyers, or Avvo. In a survey of sixty-three hundred people that have hired an attorney, 46.5 percent said online reviews from sources like Yelp, Avvo, and Google greatly impacted their decision when choosing an attorney.
The downside of resources that show you a lawyer’s rankings or reviews is that they don’t necessarily account for specialty. If I lawyer is great at personal injury, and their clients love them, they still might not be the right fit for you. You can usually tell how established a truck accident lawyer is based on whether or not they speak at seminars, publish articles, or share their knowledge in another way. If an attorney is teaching his or her peers about truck accident law, the odds are they know more than others on that topic.
Interviewing the Attorney
Before hiring anyone, you should have a short list of three or four attorneys that you found while researching. You will need to meet with them to make sure they are a good fit for you and your family. After a catastrophic semi wreck, the legal process will likely take a long time. You are going to spend a lot of time with the lawyer you hire, so you need to make sure it is someone you trust, and someone who makes you feel looked after. Make sure that after talking to them, you know what type of lawyer they are, if you feel comfortable with them, if they are honest and straightforward, and that they have the experience needed to get you the results you deserve.
You can ask questions like:
- Have you ever handled a case like mine? Have you ever tried one?
- Who makes up the team that would work on my case?
- When was the last time you went to trial and what was the result?
- How often will we meet to discuss my claims?
- What percentage of your work is focused on semi-truck crashes?
- How soon will you hire experts, and what types of experts will you hire?
These questions will help you quickly discern whether the attorney will be the right fit for you and your case.
The Lawyer’s Team is Important
Make sure when you are interviewing firms that there is a team working on your case. For example, at our firm, each case is handled by a team with a private investigator, a rapid response team, a paralegal, a social worker, a client care coordinator, legal assistants, as well as no fewer than three attorneys. This strategy makes sure that you are well supported.
If only one lawyer is assigned to your case, and that lawyer happens to be in trial or they’re sick or on vacation, your file sits untouched. A whole team of people all contributing to your case means that it never sits.
If a Lawyer Isn’t Preparing for Trial, Then They Aren’t Preparing for Settlement
Most people don’t want to go to trial. Especially when a family is trying to cope with the trauma of an accident, a trial sounds painful. And no lawyer should force you to go to trial. But no lawyer should pressure you to settle, either. A lawyer who aims to settle your case as quickly as possible is likely not going to get you the results you need to move forward with your life. An experienced lawyer who knows how to take a case to trial and diligently works through the steps that lead up to a trial will be a greater asset to you because they will vigorously defend your rights against the trucking company and the insurance company.
You Don’t Have to Go Through This Alone
Placing your case in the hands of an attorney is a significant act of trust. You are trusting that they will tell your story, that they will fight for you, and that they will represent you the way they should.
There is a lot more to share on how to hire the right attorney. Hopefully this guide helped give you a reasonable start to your search process. At Craig, Kelley & Faultless, it is our sincere hope that everyone who needs to hire legal counsel is able to find someone they trust who can get them the results they need.
That’s why I have written two books to help people navigate the legal process. My first book, Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families, reflects my experience as a truck wreck lawyer, and serves as a resource to anyone who is navigating the hardships faced by truck wreck victims. My more recent book, It’s Never Been Easier to Hire the Wrong Attorney, is a guide for anyone looking to hire a lawyer. It is written to empower people to make better legal decisions, since I have seen firsthand what I lifechanging difference a lawyer can make.
For all truck accident victims and their families, I want to stress that you don’t have to go through this alone. There are resources for you. If you need support of any kind, give me a call.
Craig, Kelley & Faultless Is Ready to Help
Craig, Kelley & Faultless is a personal injury law firm handling semi and other truck accident cases in St. Louis, Missouri, and throughout the nation. The firm has lawyers licensed in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee. These experienced lawyers have dedicated their careers to helping victims and their loved ones involved in commercial vehicle wrecks through every aspect of their case. The firm also has a rapid response team that works with investigators, reconstructionists and mechanics who immediately collect evidence as soon as the firm is hired.
Our Missouri attorney Christopher M. Barry was included in 2026’s edition of The Best Lawyers in America®, reflecting his professional reputation and results. Chris believes that the civil justice system, particularly the right to a jury trial, plays a critical role in holding negligent parties accountable. He represents injured individuals exclusively and is committed to helping clients navigate difficult circumstances with clear guidance, responsiveness, and strong advocacy.
The Craig, Kelley & Faultless St. Louis office is located at 5585 Pershing Ave Suite 110, St. Louis, MO 63112, available by appointment only. Reach out for a free case consultation at (314) 367-2661or visit https://www.ckflaw.com/st-louis/.
David W. Craig sits on the Board of Regents of the Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys, which requires Board Certification in Truck Accident Law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. He is the managing partner and one of the founding partners of Craig, Kelley & Faultless LLC. David is the author of Semitruck Wreck, A Guide for Victims and Their Families and It’s Never Been Easier to Hire the Wrong Attorney, both written to help people navigate what comes next after a tragic wreck. He also hosts the podcast After the Crash, where you can gain valuable information about the dangers involving semis and large trucks that do not follow safety protocol regarding speed, weather conditions, maintenance upkeep, etc.
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