Personal Injury Cases at the STREET LAW FIRM
Behind the Scenes
One of the highlights of our web site, www.srfirm.com, is our articles on the best and worst insurance companies. We’ll be updating the articles soon with our latest picks. In the meantime, be sure to read the articles to find out whether your insurance company is on the list. Make it one of your New Year’s resolutions to get rid of ALLSTATE, FARMERS, and the others listed on our “Worst” list and substitute one from our “Best” list. Please remember that price should be the last thing you compare. What is important is not what the insurance costs, but whether it pays when you need it. See our articles for more details.
HOW TO OBTAIN STATUS UPDATES ON YOUR CASEWhen you need any information about your case, we invite you to speak to one of our capable staff assistants. They are usually easier to reach than Dan Street (who is often out of the office in court, depositions or mediations). Our staff assistants are familiar with every aspect of your case and can answer most of your questions promptly.
MEET OUR STAFF:
Our department heads and their primary areas of expertise are, as follows:
Robert Nichols serves as Case Manager and also as Administrative Assistant to Attorney Dan Street. From start to finish, from intake right through settlement, Robert is the go-to guy for any information on your case. He supervises the other legal assistants and makes sure everything is flowing smoothly and quickly through the system, while still making sure all the minute details of each case have been attended to. Robert is in his fourth year of service at STREET LAW FIRM. He also serves our country as a Sergeant in the Marine Corps Reserve, and will be in Virginia the last three months of 2010 in a special training course for the Marines. Please take a minute to thank Robert for his sacrificial service to the security and protection of our nation the next time you speak to him. You may reach Robert by telephone at (972) 404-8585, extension 20. His email address is rn@srfirm.com .
Jill Russell is the Bookkeeper for STREET LAW FIRM and also heads up our Litigation Department. Once a lawsuit becomes necessary, Jill works with the attorneys to advance the case through every stage of the litigation process, from filing the initial petition with the court, right through obtaining a judgment or settlement. Jill assists the attorneys with motions, summary judgments, discovery and trials. She meets with clients to assist them in answering discovery and to help them prepare for depositions or trial. She also schedules mediations, recorded statements, depositions, and hearings. Finally, Jill handles all the money-matters for the firm, including payroll, settlement statements, and other bookkeeping and banking issues. You may reach Jill by telephone at (972) 404-8585, extension 21. Her email address is jr@srfirm.com .
Celeste Moomaw is in charge of our Pre-Litigation Department. Celeste meets with clients, initiates files, keeps client address and telephone records up-to-date, issues notice letters, files documents, and much more. She handles all the details necessary to get your claim started with the insurance company, including filing for Personal Injury Protection benefits (PIP). Celeste obtains all medical records, bills, and affidavits necessary to “prove up” damages in injury cases. She also assists the attorneys in obtaining settlement offers from the insurance companies and helps in determining when litigation is necessary. Celeste meets with the attorneys frequently throughout the day and knows just about every detail of your case, right up through the day a lawsuit is filed and your case is then transferred over to the Litigation Department. Celeste’s telephone number is (972) 404-8585, extension 14, and her email address is cm@srfirm.com .
Cassie Doss is our File Assistant. Cassie’s voice is often the first you’ll hear when you call our office. Cassie has so many varied duties it would be hard to list them all. In short, she works on just about every file at one time or another as the case progresses through the system, from initiating a new file right up through settlement. Cassie is probably most familiar with the documents in your case—the hundreds of pages of records, bills, letters, notices, motions—the stacks of paper that make up a personal injury file. She is familiar with them because she has to read them, catalog them, and file them, both physically in a paper file and electronically in a digital file. If you need information about a document that either you sent to us or you received from us, Cassie is the go-to girl. (She’s also very helpful with just about everything else you might wish to know.) You can reach Cassie at 972-404-8585, extension 16, or at cd@srfirm.com .
Dan Street is the owner and Managing Attorney at STREET LAW FIRM, having founded the firm in 1982. Dan has successfully resolved over 9,000 personal injury and wrongful death cases either through settlement or jury verdict, and during all that time has lost only 8 cases in court. Dan’s experience as an Assistant District Attorney in Dallas and later as a judge gave him lots of time in the courtroom and prepared him well to be a personal injury trial lawyer. With over 50 cases in litigation on any given day, and a couple hundred more in the negotiation process, Dan stays very busy. However, Dan stubbornly believes in fighting for every last dollar. (He filed a lawsuit once because the insurance carrier wouldn’t pay another $100.00 that Dan thought they should. He won.) Dan has four grown children, all of whom graduated from college (of which he is justly proud). His two sons also graduated from medical school and are practicing physicians. One daughter is in graduate nursing school and the other is in graduate architecture school.
All of our staff assistants are familiar with each case so it is not necessary for you to speak directly to your attorney to receive an update. Please utilize our staff assistants for all but the most urgent matters to allow your attorney time to work directly on your case.
CASES HANDLED BY THE STREET LAW FIRMAs most of you know, the attorneys at the STREET LAW FIRM handle only personal injury and wrongful death cases. However, this includes a wide range of topics. The cases we handle include the following:
THANK YOU FOR YOUR REFERRALS!Our firm receives hundred of referrals each year, and the vast majority of these come from you, our current and former clients. Because we do not advertise (which we think is distasteful for an attorney) or solicit (which is unethical), we depend upon word-of-mouth referrals from you. We want to thank each of you personally for sending your friends, family, and coworkers to us for their personal injury legal needs. We sincerely appreciate every referral.
On the topic of referrals, many of you have asked if we pay a “referral fee” for cases sent to us. While we would like to show our gratitude for referrals, it is both unethical and illegal for any attorney to pay a non-lawyer for a case or solicit a case without your invitation to be contacted. This is called “barratry” and it is a felony offense, punishable by up to 10 years in the penitentiary, both for the lawyer paying the gratuity or soliciting the case and for the client accepting it! If any lawyer offers to pay you for a case, or calls and solicits your case after you have had an accident, you should report that person to both the Texas State Bar and the District Attorney. Please help us weed out the “ambulance-chasing” members of our profession.
When you have been involved in an accident, it is very important for you to gather the essential information that will be needed by us to pursue your case. You should always get the full name and address of the other party, along with their date of birth and driver’s license number. Also, never speak to the insurance company (theirs or yours) before you speak to us. Remember that insurance companies are recording your statements (and they don’t have to inform you that they are doing so) and their goal is not to pay your claim but instead to find a way out of paying your claim. (That’s how they make their money.) Let us do the talking for you. We know exactly what to say and what not to say in order to protect your rights.
In order to help you remember what information you need in the event of an accident, we’ve linked our Glove Box Accident Information Form. Makes copies of this form and keep a copy in each of your vehicles.
We wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous year!
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