4 New Things At The Tully Law Firm
1st – Technology Modernization: Because we believe that having the latest technology helps in our representation of YOU, we have just purchased 2 brand new fully loaded computers for our paralegals to use. Hopefully, this will make our Law Firm state of the art in computer efficiency.
2nd – Employee Anniversaries: Recently Dee, our most experienced paralegal, celebrated her 16th year at the Tully Law Firm. Thank you Denise for your continued loyalty and competency. Also Mary our dedicated secretary (and part time traffic cop directing calls, getting records and reminding me of important deadlines) celebrated her 14th year with our office. Thank you Mary for your loyalty and kindness.
Denise and Mary (along with our other superb paralegal Pam) help to move YOUR cases forward. They get your medical records and help to organize them. Without them I would be nothing. Thank you Denise, Mary and Pam.
3rd – Getting Your Settlement $$ Quickly: So you accepted the top offer we were able to get to settle your case. You have signed the Release and are waiting for your $$. And waiting and waiting. So how long can the insurance company hold on to the settlement $$ before giving it to us? The answer is 20 days. Yes the insurance company has 20 days after you sign the Release to give it to us. After that we have the right to file a Motion to Enforce the Settlement. In the Motion we can request interest, penalties and attorney fees for the delay. We, in fact, just did this for a client last month. So you can see we try to guarantee you receive your settlement $$ in a timely manner.
4th – Because of the generous referrals from YOU our faithful readers, we have been getting a number of new auto accident cases into our office. Thank You so very much! Therefore, we have decided to expand our current office to make room for the new cases. We will still be at our current address even with the expansion. And we will have another big positive change coming at our firm soon. More details in next month’s Newsletter. Stay tuned!
Why Is The Holiday Season The Time That Insurance Companies Push To Settle Your Case?
1st because they want to clear their books at the end of the year for profits and losses. By having your case resolved, the insurance company can know what their expenses were for the year. This makes sense. The 2nd reason is they know money is tight for everyone at this time of year. They also know that you need money for gifts and other things to get thru the holiday season and that your bills are going to be due in January. Therefore, they often make an offer to you which is generally 10 to 15% lower than what they really think they should settle the case for. They hope that your financial situation is such that you have to take their offer.
I will be there to advise you whether or not the offer is a good one. I do not claim to get every suggestion to clients right by any means. However, I will honestly tell you whether I think the offer is a good one or a bad one. On that you have my word.
We will also keep you informed of any NEW offers in your case.
Stock Market Blues
Many of you have $$ invested in the stock market and are wondering what you should do at this point. Here is some free legal advice for you that may save you an incredible amount of $$ over time:
1st, as I am always preaching, you should have 99% of your stock money in index funds, not in your stock adviser’s pocket. Index funds charge the lowest rate possible for their services.
2nd, put only money in the stock market that you do not need to touch for ten years. That is the key thing. Then just let your $$ grow! Trust me on this one.
A Free Practical Tip To Increase The Value Of Your Case
Keep an active diary of what you are going thru each day. This will be invaluable over the long term because it is easy to forget today about the pain you had 6 or 8 months ago. If it is in your diary you can just point to that day or week and say I remember this specifically. A lot of times being a good diary taker increases the value of your case significantly. So that is a real good way to increase the value of your case.
Congratulations to Joe P. who won a $50.00 check for guessing last month’s question and having his name picked from our drawing.
Now For Your Turn: Name one holiday celebrated in the USA in January (Hint: there are two of them).
Your Friend and Lawyer,
Bernard M. Tully