Interviewing a firm produces answers. Vetting means testing those answers against records that exist whether or not anybody mentions them. License status and discipline are public. Whether a firm actually tries cases is checkable. And whether your case even stays with the people you hired is governed by a rule most clients have never heard of.
By Michael Mangione, Legal Research EditorLast reviewed August 1, 202619 min read
Check, do not just ask Discipline records are public You may be entitled to the fee split In one state, you are not Independent and attorney vetted No fee unless you recover Check, do not just ask Discipline records are public You may be entitled to the fee split In one state, you are not Independent and attorney vetted No fee unless you recover
The distinction
Verify
Asking produces an answer. Checking produces evidence. They are not the same.
Free to check
License
Standing and disciplinary history are published by the state bar.
Also checkable
Trials
Whether a firm has actually tried cases appears in court records.
The rule to know
Fee split
In most states you must agree to it in writing. In some you need not be told.
Key takeaways
Almost everything you will be told is checkable. License, discipline, trial history, and who owns the firm.
Ask whether the case will be referred out. In most states the split has to be agreed by you, in writing.
Meeting a partner is not the same as being represented by one. Find out who does the actual work.
Advertised results prove nothing unsupported. A figure without a case behind it is marketing.
Editorial content, not legal advice
This guide is written and reviewed by our editorial team to be accurate and current. It is general information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. The professional conduct rules quoted below are adopted state by state and differ, sometimes on exactly the point that matters most to you; each quotation is labeled with its state. We are a referral service and are paid by attorneys, which is itself something you are entitled to ask us about.
01 Vetting is not interviewing
Quick answer
An interview tests how a firm presents itself. Vetting tests whether what it says is true. Both are worth doing and only one of them can be done without the firm's cooperation, which is why this page exists separately.
The distinction matters because the answers are usually sincere. Most firms describe themselves accurately. The problem is that the descriptions are also unfalsifiable as delivered, and the few cases where the description is wrong are precisely the ones you need to catch. Anybody working out how to choose an injury lawyer is better served by twenty minutes with public records than by a second meeting.
Bottom line: do the checking before the meeting, so the meeting is about the case.
Public record
Free, and takes minutes.
02 The license and the discipline record
Quick answer
Every state bar publishes whether a lawyer is licensed, in good standing, and whether public discipline has been imposed. It is free, it takes a few minutes, and it is the one check nobody can talk you out of.
Search your state bar's own site for the individual lawyer's name rather than the firm's, because discipline attaches to people.
Check the person, not the letterhead. Firms are marketing entities. Licences and discipline belong to named individuals.
Check every state they claim. A firm advertising nationally may have one lawyer licensed where you are, or none.
Read what discipline actually says. Records vary from trust account errors to serious misconduct, and the detail matters.
Note admission dates. Years in practice is a claim. An admission date is a fact, and the two occasionally differ.
Our own standard is set out on how we vet attorneys, and you should hold us to the same checking we describe here.
03 Whether they actually try cases
Quick answer
Nearly every firm says it is prepared to go to trial. Court records show whether anybody there has. Filings and case histories are public, and in most places searchable online by attorney or firm name.
This is worth knowing because a defendant's insurer knows it already, and prices accordingly. It is also the single most useful thing to establish when working out how to choose an injury lawyer for a case serious enough that trial is a real possibility.
Search the court where your case would be filed. State trial courts and the federal district covering your area both have public dockets.
Look for cases that went to verdict. Filing a lawsuit is routine. Trying one to a conclusion is not.
Volume is not the same as depth. A firm with thousands of filings and no trials has a settlement practice, which may still be right for you.
Ask them to name two. Then look those two up. This single step separates the checkable from the unverifiable.
The rule
A right to be told.
04 Will your case stay with this firm?
Quick answer
Some firms advertise widely and then hand serious cases to other lawyers who actually litigate them, taking a share of the fee. That is lawful and can be entirely in your interest. What matters is that in most states you have to agree to it, in writing.
The rule governing this appears in every state's rules of professional conduct, and its own official commentary describes exactly the arrangement in question.
Illustration, one state's rules of professional conduct
The client agrees, including the share each lawyer will receive
Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.5(e)
The rule provides that a division of a fee between lawyers who are not in the same firm may be made only if: (1) the division is in proportion to the services performed by each lawyer or each lawyer assumes joint responsibility for the representation; (2) the client agrees to the arrangement, including the share each lawyer will receive, and the agreement is confirmed in writing, and the total fee is reasonable. Read the rule
The official commentary to that rule, in the versions several states have adopted, is unusually direct about when this arises. Indiana's published comment states that a division of fee facilitates association of more than one lawyer in a matter in which neither alone could serve the client as well, and most often is used when the fee is contingent and the division is between a referring lawyer and a trial specialist. That is a fair description of a large advertising firm and the litigator it hands the case to, written by the people who drafted the rule. Read the comment
So the question to put is simple and the answer should be in writing: will this case be referred to another firm, and if so, what share does each receive? A firm that intends to refer your case out has no difficulty saying so. Our guide to fees and contingency arrangements deals with the rest of the money.
05 The state where you need not be told
Quick answer
Do not assume the rule above applies where you live. At least one state has adopted a version that expressly does not require the client to be told what share each lawyer takes. The protection you have depends on your state, which is exactly why this is worth checking.
We include this because a guide that told you what you are entitled to, without mentioning that it varies, would be worse than useless.
Contrasting illustration, a different state
It does not require disclosure of the share
Delaware Lawyers' Rules of Professional Conduct, comment to Rule 1.5
The commentary there records that paragraph (e) permits the lawyers to divide a fee without regard to whether the division is in proportion to the services each lawyer renders or whether each lawyer assumes responsibility for the representation as a whole, so long as the client is advised in writing and does not object, and the total fee is reasonable. It then states the difference plainly: It does not require disclosure to the client of the share that each lawyer is to receive. You would still be told a division is happening. You would not necessarily be told the split.
Two states, two different entitlements, on the question of who is being paid what to run your case. Check your own state's rule, or ask the firm to tell you the split regardless of whether it is obliged to. A firm that declines to answer a question it is merely not compelled to answer has told you something.
Results
A figure is not a case.
06 Checking advertised results
Quick answer
A headline figure with no case attached cannot be checked and should carry no weight. A figure with a case name, a court and a year can be looked up, and firms that publish results properly generally publish them that way.
This is less about catching dishonesty than about calibration. Advertised numbers are selected, not typical.
Look for the case, court and year. Without those a figure is unverifiable, and a verdict is a public record.
Distinguish verdict from recovery. A large verdict may have been reduced on appeal, or settled for much less afterwards.
Check who tried it. Firms sometimes list results obtained by lawyers who have since left, or by co-counsel.
Ignore totals. Recovered over a hundred million for our clients describes a business, not your case.
Anyone comparing firms while deciding how to choose an injury lawyer will find that results pages look similar and verify very differently. Our guide to attorney red flags covers the presentation problems in more detail.
07 Who will actually do the work
Quick answer
The person who signs you up is frequently not the person who runs the case. That is normal in a functioning firm and a problem only when nobody tells you, so get the name in writing and then check that person.
The check is the same as in the sections above, applied to the right individual.
Get a name, not a team. Handled by our catastrophic injury group is not an answer you can verify.
Then run the license check on them. Not on the founder whose name is on the door.
Ask who you will speak to routinely. Often a paralegal or case manager, which is fine and worth knowing.
Ask what happens if that person leaves. Turnover is common, and the answer reveals how the firm is organized.
08 The checkable list, in order
Quick answer
Five checks, all free, all doable before you sign anything, and none requiring the firm's help. Together they take about half an hour and they are the whole of vetting.
Do them in this order, because the early ones are quickest and the cheapest to fail on.
1
Search the state bar for the individual
License status, standing and any public discipline, for the specific lawyer rather than the firm. Free, and the fastest disqualifier there is.
2
Search the court where your case would go
Look for filings and, more importantly, cases that reached a verdict. Public dockets are searchable by attorney in most jurisdictions.
3
Get the referral question answered in writing
Will this case be referred out, and what share does each firm take. In most states your written agreement to that split is required anyway.
4
Get the handling lawyer's name, then check it
Apply step one to that person. The name on the advertising and the name on your file are often different.
5
Pick two advertised results and look them up
Case, court, year. If they cannot be identified well enough to find, treat the results page as marketing rather than evidence.
Warning signs
Mostly unanswerable claims.
09 Red flags
Quick answer
Pressure to sign at the first meeting, vagueness about who will handle the case, reluctance to answer the referral question in writing, and results that cannot be identified well enough to check.
The third is the most informative, because the answer is easy to give and the reluctance is the signal.
What should stop you signing today
Sign now. No legitimate reason exists to sign at a first meeting, even where a deadline is genuinely close. A firm that says otherwise is managing you. Our team will handle it. Cases are handled by people. If nobody will name one, nobody has been assigned. Evasion on referral. In most states you have to agree to any fee split in writing, so a firm reluctant to discuss it is postponing a conversation it must eventually have. Unverifiable results. Large figures without a case, court or year cannot be checked, and the firms that publish properly do include them.
A closing thought on how to choose an injury lawyer when you are injured and have no appetite for any of this. Delegate it. A relative with half an hour and a search engine can complete every check on this page, and the checks do not need legal knowledge, only the willingness to look things up rather than take them on trust. A free case review costs nothing, and you can read how we match people with attorneys before deciding anything.
How we vet every lawyer
This is a standard rather than an ordering. An attorney either clears it or does not.
Active, discipline-free license
Verified good standing with the state bar, with no unresolved discipline on record. You can and should check this yourself too.
Answers the referral question plainly
Whether a case will stay with the firm, and on what terms. We ask, and we expect it in writing.
Capacity to fund expert work
Serious cases need records and specialists early, and both cost money before anything is recovered.
Clear contingency terms
Fees and case costs put in writing up front, so you know exactly how it works before signing.
Tell us what happened and we will only match you when a case genuinely fits.
Help in all 50 states
MVA Lawyer Network is a nationwide guide. Wherever it happened, we can connect you with an independent attorney licensed in that state.
Northeast Southeast Midwest Southwest West Coast Mountain West Gulf States Alaska and Hawaii
Rules of professional conduct are adopted state by state, and as the two quoted above show, they differ on questions that affect you directly. What a lawyer must tell you about a fee division, how advertising and case results may be presented, whether any certification as a specialist exists in your state, and how discipline is published all vary. Bar records are searchable everywhere but the systems and the level of detail differ considerably. Check the rule and the register for the state where your case belongs, which is the state where the attorney needs to be licensed. The deadline for bringing a claim, known as the statute of limitations, is running now.
Sources and authorities
Rules of professional conduct adopted by state courts are public. Both quotations are from official state publications.
Division of fees between lawyers
Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 1.5(e), published by the state revisor. Source of the requirement that the client agrees to the arrangement including the share each lawyer will receive, confirmed in writing. Minnesota Revisor.
Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct, comment to Rule 1.5, published by the Indiana courts. Source of the comment that a division of fee facilitates association of more than one lawyer in a matter in which neither alone could serve the client as well, and most often is used when the fee is contingent and the division is between a referring lawyer and a trial specialist. An earlier version of this page attributed that sentence to Minnesota's comment. It appears in the adopted commentary of many states, but Indiana is the version we read, so Indiana is what we cite. Indiana Court Rules.
Delaware Lawyers' Rules of Professional Conduct, comment to Rule 1.5, published by the Delaware courts. Source of the contrasting position that the paragraph permits division without regard to proportion or joint responsibility so long as the client is advised in writing and does not object, and that it does not require disclosure to the client of the share each lawyer is to receive. Delaware Courts.
Why two states, and why the disagreement is the point. It would have been easier to state the majority rule and move on. But the whole value of knowing about a fee division is knowing what you are entitled to be told, and that entitlement is not uniform. Presenting the Minnesota position alone would have left readers in other states believing they had a right they may not have. All three are labeled and none governs anywhere else. Where a quotation appears in many states versions of a rule, we cite the state whose text we actually read rather than the one that reads most tidily.
What we have not used. The model rules on which most state codes are based are published by a private bar association and are copyrighted, so we have quoted the state-adopted versions instead, which are public law. We have also given no figures for how often cases are referred out, how many firms try cases, or rates of attorney discipline, because we located no public source we had read that would support any of them.
A disclosure about us. This page tells you to verify claims made by people who want your case. We are one of those people: we are paid a referral fee by the attorneys we match, which is set out on our own pages and which you are entitled to ask about directly. The checks described above apply to any attorney we introduce you to, and we would rather you ran them.
Our editorial standards
How we keep this guide accurate and worth trusting.
01
State-adopted rules, not the model
Court-adopted rules are public law. The private model code they derive from is copyrighted, so we do not quote it.
02
We quote the state that disagrees
Giving only the majority rule would have implied a protection some readers do not have.
03
Checks you can run without us
Every step on this page uses a public record. None of it requires a firm's cooperation or ours.
04
We include ourselves
We are paid by the attorneys we match. That is disclosed here, and the same checks apply to them.
Michael Mangione Verified editor
Legal Research Editor · Founder, The Mangione Group, Inc.
MVA Lawyer Network is edited by Michael Mangione, who has spent more than twelve years working inside contingency-based law firms, building intake departments, designing qualification frameworks, and studying how claims are screened and pursued from the first call through resolution. Having built intake systems, he is aware that intake is designed to produce a signature, and that the checks on this page are the ones a well-run intake conversation never invites. Michael is not a practicing attorney and does not give legal advice.
General information, not legal advice. Professional conduct rules are adopted state by state and differ, so check anything here against your own state and your own attorney.
What is the difference between vetting and interviewing a firm?
An interview tests how a firm presents itself and produces answers. Vetting tests whether those answers hold up against records that exist independently: bar registers, court dockets, published verdicts. The important practical difference is that vetting needs nobody's cooperation. You can complete every check on this page before you speak to anybody, and the answers you then get are far easier to weigh.
How do I check whether a lawyer is licensed and in good standing?
Search the state bar's own register for the individual lawyer by name, not the firm. Every state publishes license status, standing and any public discipline, and it is free. Search each state the firm claims to serve, because a national advertiser may have nobody licensed where you are. Note the admission date too: years in practice is a claim, whereas an admission date is a record.
Can I find out whether a firm has actually tried cases?
Usually yes. Court records are public and in most places searchable by attorney or firm name, in both the state trial court and the federal district covering your area. Look for cases that reached a verdict rather than counting filings, because filing is routine and trying a case to conclusion is not. A useful shortcut is to ask the firm to name two trials and then look those two up.
My case might be referred to another firm. Is that allowed?
Yes, and it is often in your interest, because the firm that advertises is not always the firm best placed to litigate. What matters is consent. In most states the rule on dividing fees between lawyers in different firms requires you to agree to the arrangement, including the share each lawyer will receive, confirmed in writing. The official commentary notes this most often happens between a referring lawyer and a trial specialist.
Am I always entitled to know how the fee is split?
No, and this is worth knowing. Most states require your agreement to the split itself, which means you are told the shares. At least one state has adopted a version whose commentary says expressly that it does not require disclosure of the share each lawyer is to receive; you would be advised in writing that a division is happening without necessarily learning the numbers. Ask anyway. A firm can tell you even where it need not.
The person I met is not the person handling my case. Is that normal?
Very. Larger firms separate intake from litigation, and that is not a problem in itself. It becomes one when nobody tells you, or when no individual is actually assigned. Ask for a name rather than a team, get it in writing, and then run the same license and discipline check on that person. Also ask what happens if they leave, because turnover is common and the answer is revealing.
How should I read a firm's advertised results?
As selected examples rather than as typical outcomes, and only if they can be checked. A figure with a case name, court and year can be looked up. One without those cannot. Distinguish a verdict from what was actually recovered, since verdicts are sometimes reduced or settled afterwards for much less. Cumulative totals recovered across a firm's history describe a business rather than anything about your case.
Is a specialist certification worth anything?
It depends entirely on your state, because certification schemes and the rules on advertising them are state creatures. Some states operate or approve certification in particular fields and regulate how it may be described; others have nothing comparable. Where a scheme exists, whether a lawyer holds the certification is checkable. Where none exists, phrases that sound like credentials may be self-described, so treat them accordingly.
Do I have to pay anything up front?
Injury firms generally work on a contingency basis, meaning the fee is a percentage of what is recovered set out in the written agreement and there is nothing to pay up front. Case costs, meaning experts and records and filing fees, are a separate item from the fee, and the agreement should say plainly who carries them and what happens to them if the case does not succeed.
Is what I tell you private?
Yes. What you share in a case review is kept private and is used only to match you with an attorney who fits your situation. One distinction is worth understanding: true legal confidentiality, called attorney-client privilege, only attaches once you actually have an attorney-client relationship with a lawyer. Submitting a form to a referral service is not the same thing. If that matters to you, raise it directly with the attorney.
What does it cost to use MVA Lawyer Network?
Nothing. We are a free, independent referral service, not a law firm, and we do not give legal advice. Requesting a case review costs you nothing and puts you under no obligation. When a situation fits, we connect you with an independent attorney who reviews it directly, and we may be paid a referral fee by that attorney. That fee does not add anything on top of their percentage.
Everything a firm tells you about itself can be checked. Almost nobody checks.
One short, private form. No cost, no obligation, and no fee unless there is a recovery.
