Doug Delivering Clients Checks

Not many lawyers will actually take the time to hand-deliver checks to their clients in order to expedite their receipt of settlement funds. However, Herndon Bicycle Crash Lawyer Doug Landau notes that he derives joy from seeing the smiles on clients faces when he does so.

Lawyer Landau hand delivering the settlement check at the Green Lizard Cycling company down the street from the ABRAMS LANDAU Law Shop.

Landau notes, “especially if a client is local, it may be faster to bring their check to them, than to place it in the mail. Plus, I know that the money gets directly to the person for whom it is intended.”

Recently, Doug Landau was able to bring several checks to the husband of a client, who was injured during a training ride with her bicycle club by an unsafe driver.

FACTS OF THE BIKE CRASH CASE-

The ABRAMS LANDAU client was traveling southbound with her cycling group group.  The oncoming vehicles were stopped in the roadway. The fist driver was assisting a turtle to get safely out of the roadway. There were approximately 3 – 4 cars in the lineup. The Defendant motorcycle came up on the “wrong” side of road, around the stopped cars. The unsafe motorcyclist was looking back at the cars& turtle, and then CLIPPED this young woman on her bike, throwing her to ground.  The driver of vehicle “helping” the turtle drove the injured Herndon biker back to her car. The Emergency Medical Service personnel were waiting for her at the parking lot, and took her to the hospital, where the police were waiting to complete their bike crash investigation.

When the checks were received at the Landau Law Shop, the young woman was busy at work, so Landau brought several checks from the insurance company to her husband. The ABRAMS LANDAU team does not take a fee out of MedPay checks. Our team believes that it is important to get the money to the victims and their families right away.

The picture above demonstrates what occurred post the bicycle crash. The first responders arrived immediately after the crash, and blocked off the roads.

TRUST ACCOUNT DEPOSITS-

About a fortnight later, the case against the unsafe driver settled in its entirety, and Landau‘s team once again gave their client the choice of having it mailed, picked up, or delivered. The difference with this settlement check was that it needed to be deposited into the ABRAMS LANDAU Trust Account. In other words, lawyers have escrow accounts where they deposit settlement funds when distributions need to be made out of the insurance company check. Most of the time, ABRAMS LANDAU will deposit this money into the Trust Account to pay any outstanding medical bills, investigator’s fees, insurance company liens (legal “IOUs”), medical reports, Traffic Court transcripts, other file costs, as well as attorney fees. The net recovery is then sent or delivered to the client as soon as possible. In some cases, the ABRAMS LANDAU team has to keep money aside to pay off a health or other insurance company lien, which is the fancy legal way of saying and “IOU.” This may be for health insurance, Worker’s Compensation payments, or other coverages that have a payback provision.

There are strict time deadline to these sorts of cases. If you, or someone you know, has questions about a bicycle or car crash case, please call (703) 796-9555 or email us at frontdesk@landaulawshop.com.