Practice Areas

If you have reviewed our website you may have seen that lawyers with this firm are licensed in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Washington, DC courts, as well as many federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court. Because our firm handles many types of significant personal injury cases, as well as wrongful death cases, we foster and welcome co-counsel relationships with other personal injury lawyers or lawyers who do not specialize in personal injury or wrongful death. Under each state's professional responsibility rules, it is permissible to enter into a co-counsel contingent legal fee relationship, so long as the relationship is clearly spelled out to the client in writing.

Typically, on receiving a potential referral, we discuss with the referring attorney the percentage of the co-counsel fee split to the referring lawyer or law firm, and agree on this at the beginning. Then, either on a conference call or however the referring attorney wants to handle this, the client is apprised of the relationship of the referring lawyer and our law firm. Later, a fee agreement is provided to the client, which sets forth the respective attorney responsibilities and relationships.

At the time of resolution of the case, where the legal fee earned is set forth for the client on the settlement statement, the relationship between the referring law firm and our law firm is stated. That’s all there is to it.

The costs and expenses to properly mount a successful medical malpractice case can be considerable, and this also goes for product liability and other major litigation. Depending upon the case, we are willing to advance the court costs and expert fees so long as this is the desired relationship with the referring lawyer or law firm and our law firm.

Because we have handled so many types of significant personal injury litigation cases, we have developed many relationships with not only medical experts, but with liability related experts throughout the eastern United States. Also, we work with medical illustrators in many cases to help present evidence of anatomy and surgical procedures to support medical damages.

Also, it is important for a referring attorney to understand that our lawyers are members of the Primerus group (plaintiff bar), which only accepts lawyers on the plaintiff’s side of the aisle who have been approved for membership by a background review with area judges and lawyers.

We are proud of our ongoing co-counsel relationships and we note that our law firm obtained, in the year 2000 the largest verdict ever in the history of Virginia for an individual in a personal injury case, and this case was the result of a referral from a lawyer who did not have extensive experience in railroad injury matters. The $46,000,000 verdict, with interest, was $60,000,000 and the case was appealed to the Virginia Supreme Court by the defendant and was confidentially settled while the appeal was pending. If we can work with you as co-counsel on a potential personal injury case please contact us.

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Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton, P.C.
1294 Diamond Springs Road
Virginia Beach, VA 23455

Toll Free: (800) 752.0042
Phone: (757) 460-7776
Fax: (757) 460.3428

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