Firstly, you should do some research, preferrably online research and produce a shortlist of prospective whiplash lawyer candidates.  They should be experienced and reasonably local so that you can visit them and discuss your claim on a face to face basis.  You need to narrow the shortlist that you have created down to a maximum of three.  Once you have selected your top three you need to arrange to meet with them on a face to face basis to discuss the services they can offer you and to initially brief them on the claim details that you wish to make.  If they are as good as you hope they will be able to give you an initial assessment of your chances of success in the event that you take up the challenge and pursue the claim you believe you should.

In the interview you should ask them for details of their experience, and in terms of details you should ask them to outline exactly what the case involved, especially focussing on their particular activities in the successful conclusion of those cases and whether or not they were effective.  Do not be afraid to ask searching questions or to ask for very specific details.  If the information you ask is of a sensitive nature then they are at liberty to refuse to provide it on these grounds.  Many times you will find that they are quite happy to provide the detail you are looking for, albeit on an anonymized basis.  After all, they are hoping that you will retain their services to make your claim.

You should provide a detailed description of the circumstances that have led up to you making your particular claim and ask for their opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of your case.  If they try to avoid answering these initial questions then you should almost certainly consider striking them off the list as if they cannot answer, or wish to charge you for this initial consultation then the chances are that you will end  up with a very significant fee at the end of your claim.  Most will be quite happy to give you a view.  In fact many will take the case on a no win no fee basis and therefore it will be in their best interest for you to win the case and so they will be interested in the detail and happy to give you their initial assessment.  You should take detailed notes during this phase of the interview.

Following the initial interviews you should spend some time comparing the responses of the different whiplash lawyers that you interviewed and generally trying to decide which one you preferred.

Finally you need to consider their fee arrangements.  A good whiplash lawyer will not necessarily come cheap, but then a good whiplash lawyer will maximize the claim you make and therefore you need to balance the fee charging arrangements against the skill and experience of the particular whiplash lawyers you have seen.

But what does a good whiplash lawyer actually do?  Well, they provide a number of services for your benefit at different stages of any prospective claim you may be considering in order to deal with the aftermath of your whiplash injury.  Their primary role is to ensure that the insurance company against which you may be making a claim gives you a fair and adequate compensation or settlement, but along the way they provide a number of other services too.

In the first instance, and right from the very first meeting they should be providing you advice, experienced advice, backed up with evidence from other cases they have been involved in, of your chances of making a successful whiplash injury claim.  You do not want to waste your time, energy and potentially money if you never had a chance from the very beginning of being successful in a claim.

They will then assist you in evaluating exactly what sort of compensation you need.  They will do this by helping you through the process of evaluating the impact that the accident and the resulting injury has had on your ability to continue what was for you a normal life.  This will include loss of earnings from being off work, an assessment of future loss of earnings if you are unable to continue in the same line of work as before as a result of the injury you have sustained.  They will look at the medical expenses that you may have, are and may continue to have to meet in order to get treatment for your condition.  Finally they will try to understand and evaluate the impact that the accident has had on other areas of you life, including your home and family life.

This information they will then incorporate into a claim against the other party’s insurance company.  They will make the claim on your behalf and deal with all associated correspondence with that insurance company which if done well will lead to a successful outcome to your claim.

Hopefully you can see the reason why selecting the right whiplash lawyer to act on your behalf is extremely important to your welfare following a successful outcome to your claim.