Debating on switching from construction and commercial litigation to PI. My friend joined a reputable PI firm where everyone is making over $200k a year. Im starting my third year of practice making just $110k but expecting a raise soon. Can I get everyone’s input on PI work? Was it worth it? How low are the lows?

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Plaintiffs side PI is generally great, but the factors that can make it absolutely shitty are very hard to avoid:

1) greedy firm owners that don’t pay very well & overwork the hell out of their associates. This is different firm by firm, but unfortunately, it’s not uncommon.

2) you really won’t make a lot of money until you’re either a rainmaker, a fully fledged trial attorney, and/or run your own firm. You need to ensure that your firm pays a percentage on the cases that you work on AND the cases you bring in. Some firms try to do one or the other; don’t work for those firms.

Those are the two major issues with working on plaintiffs side PI. The rest of the crappy attributes can be found in generally any other area of law; long hours, office politics, etc.

If you’re going into PI with the idea of starting your own firm, make sure that you get both prelit & litigation experience; you’ll need both to properly run a firm. Also, don’t rely on your case managers & paralegals to negotiate liens for you, set up doctors appts, etc. Learn to handle every single aspect of a case - from intake, to treatment, to negotiations with the adjusters, to doing depos & motions - and you’ll be a far more successful PI attorney than the ones that can only do one or two things.

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I third this, last PI firm I was at paid 60k out of law school for a pre litigation associate position. My main responsibilities were following up on the status of medical records, filling out PIP forms, and printing documents out to organize in the file. Someone got fired and they dumped 75 files in my lap with zero guidance. Then kept giving me shit for not being able to submit the files to settlement due to documents missing that were out of my control.

Don't do it to chase money. Everyone thinks it's easy money. Ya making 150k is easy, but the real money isn't and many of the current PI lawyers I know should be doing just about anything else.

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Well it’s not just about the money. I did ID for a year and grew a hatred for insurance companies for what they do to their insureds

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I absolutely love working in PI and the attorneys I work for make ALOT more than 200k. Granted there is only two of them and they have a pretty big caseload but they make a lot of money. I know money isn't everything but if you do have an interest in it then I woudl say to go for it.

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