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A free consultation is a two-way interview, and most people spend all of it answering questions rather than asking them. That is a missed opportunity, because the things that separate one firm from another are easy to ask about directly and almost never volunteered.
The five below are the ones worth your time, along with what a useful answer actually sounds like. Christie Bell & Marshall offers these consultations at no cost across Indiana, and you can put every one of these questions to our Indianapolis personal injury team without any obligation to hire anyone.
1. What Area Does the Injury Attorney Specialize In?
Indiana lawyers cannot advertise as certified specialists unless an approved organization actually certified them, so the more useful version of this question is simpler: what share of your caseload looks like my case?
A firm that handles injury claims alongside divorces and criminal defense is not doing the same work as one that handles injury claims only. Ask how many cases of your type the firm currently has open, and who in the office would be handling yours day to day. The answer should be a person and a number, not a description of the firm’s philosophy.
The follow-up matters just as much, because the categories are not interchangeable. A truck accident case runs on federal carrier regulations and electronic logging data. A medical malpractice case runs through a state review panel and a statutory damages cap. Experience in one does not transfer cleanly to the other.
You can also verify the basics yourself before you walk in. The Indiana Supreme Court publishes a public Roll of Attorneys that lets anyone look up a lawyer by name or attorney number and confirm their admission record. It takes about a minute and is worth doing.
2. What Strategy Might the Personal Injury Lawyer Have in Mind for Your Case?
No one can promise an outcome at a first meeting, and a lawyer who does is telling you something about their judgment. What they can describe is a plan: what evidence they would go after first, what they expect the insurer to argue, and what would have to be true for the case to be worth substantially more or less.
Push specifically on fault. Indiana applies a modified comparative fault rule, and a claimant found more than 50% at fault recovers nothing at all, while a lower percentage reduces the award proportionally. Ask how the firm handles a case where liability is disputed or where the insurer will try to assign you part of the blame, because comparative fault is the lever adjusters reach for most often. A lawyer who has thought about your case will already have a view on where that argument is coming from.
3. What Challenges Has the Attorney Faced Before in Cases Like Yours?
This question tends to produce the most honest part of the conversation, because it asks about difficulty rather than success.
Good answers sound concrete. A defendant with too little insurance to cover the harm. A client with a prior injury to the same body part. A gap in treatment that the defense used to argue the person was fine. A witness who changed their account. Each of those is a real obstacle with a known set of responses, and a lawyer who has hit them before will describe both the problem and what they did about it.
Vague reassurance is the warning sign. If the answer is that every case is different and they will fight hard for you, ask again more specifically. In a catastrophic injury claim especially, where lifetime care costs have to be projected and defended, the hard parts are predictable enough that any experienced lawyer can name them.
4. How Often Does the Injury Lawyer Take Cases to Trial?
Most injury claims resolve without a trial, which is exactly why this question matters. The settlement value of a case is shaped by what the other side believes will happen if it does not settle, and insurers track which firms try cases and which ones do not.
Ask directly: when did someone at this firm last try a personal injury case to verdict, and who was it? A firm that cannot answer is not necessarily a bad firm, but it is telling you something about the pressure it can apply. Ask also whether the lawyer sitting across from you would be the one trying the case, or whether it would be referred out.
A related question is who fronts the costs. Serious car accident cases require accident reconstruction, medical experts, and sometimes economists, and those costs run into real money well before any recovery arrives. Ask whether the firm advances them and what happens to those costs if the case is lost.
5. How Will We Communicate Throughout the Case?
This is the question people skip and later regret, because poor communication is the most common complaint clients have about lawyers generally.
Get specifics. Who is your day-to-day contact, and is it the attorney or a paralegal? How quickly are calls and emails returned? Will you be told when the insurer makes an offer, and does every offer come to you regardless of size? How often will you get an update when nothing is happening, which is most of the time in a case that takes a year or more?
One more worth asking: what should you do if the adjuster contacts you directly. The answer should be that they should not, and that calls get routed to the firm. Your lawyer handling the insurance company for you from that point forward is a basic expectation, not a premium service.
The Deadlines to Raise Before You Leave the Meeting
Ask what deadline applies to you and get the date, not the category. Indiana has more than one, and the shortest ones catch people who assumed they had two years:
- General injury claims. Most actions have to be filed within two years of when the claim accrues under IC 34-11-2-4.
- Claims against the State. Notice must be filed within 270 days after the loss under IC 34-13-3-6. This reaches state agencies, state universities, and state-run facilities.
- Claims against a city, county, or other political subdivision. Notice must be filed with the governing body within 180 days after the loss under IC 34-13-3-8. A pothole crash, a city vehicle, or an injury on municipal property falls here.
- Medical malpractice. The two-year clock generally runs from the treatment date itself rather than from the day the harm came to light, which is stricter than the general rule.
The notice requirements are the ones that end otherwise strong claims, because they can expire while someone is still in treatment and has not yet thought about a lawyer. If any government entity might be involved, that belongs in the first conversation. Those notice periods sit alongside the general Indiana statute of limitations, and a date specific to your facts is what you actually want out of a consultation.
What Our Cases Have Recovered
Asking about results is fair, and the answer should be verifiable rather than an adjective. Christie Bell & Marshall’s outcomes include a $60,000,000 recovery for a motorcyclist struck on Rockville Road in Avon by a truck driven by a Tesla employee, and an $18,500,000 recovery for a client left with a traumatic brain injury after a negligent truck driver caused the crash. Every figure the firm cites is on its case results page where you can check it. Past results cannot guarantee what any individual case will produce, because every claim turns on its own facts.
When a firm cites a number, ask what the case involved and whether it was a verdict or a settlement. Both count, but they mean different things.
Talk to an Indianapolis Personal Injury Lawyer
Ask these questions of every firm you meet with, including this one. The answers will tell you more than any advertisement, and a lawyer worth hiring will be glad you asked rather than eager to move past them.
CBM has represented injured people across Indiana since 1993, injury claims are the whole of our practice, and we only get paid if we make a financial recovery for you. Reach the firm through the contact page.
FAQs: More Questions Worth Asking a Personal Injury Attorney
Do I have a case?
It comes down to three things: someone owed you a duty of care, they fell short of it, and that failure caused you a measurable harm. All three have to be present. Whether an injury qualifies for a claim is usually answerable in one conversation once someone has seen the records.
What is my case worth?
Any number offered at a first meeting is a guess. Real value depends on the medical picture once treatment stabilizes, the permanence of the injury, lost income and future earning capacity, available insurance limits, and how much fault the defense can shift onto you. Pain and suffering is a genuine element of damages in Indiana, though it is proven through evidence rather than assigned by formula.
Who is your typical client?
A useful way of asking whether the firm handles your situation regularly. Injury practices span car and truck collisions, premises claims, defective products, nursing home neglect, birth injuries, and wrongful death cases brought by an estate. If your case type is not something the firm sees often, better to learn that in the first meeting.
Does my case have any deadlines?
Almost certainly, and possibly more than one. Beyond the filing deadlines above, evidence has its own informal clock: surveillance video is overwritten in weeks, vehicles are repaired or scrapped, and witnesses become hard to locate. Ask what needs to be preserved now, even if you have not decided whether to hire anyone.
What will the attorney need from me during the case?
Expect to provide a full medical history including prior injuries, records of time missed from work, insurance policy information, photographs, and the names of anyone who saw what happened. Expect also to attend medical appointments consistently, since gaps in treatment are the single most common argument used to reduce a claim’s value.
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