ATTORNEY MARK SPARKS – THE STIGMA OF HIRING AN ATTORNEY

 

Ferguson Law Firm Attorney Mark Sparks explains the stigma many of his clients have about hiring an attorney.

If I had a nickel over the past 20 years, that everyone’s coming to my office and said “I can’t believe I’m sitting here talking to you. I’m not the kind of person that sues,” I would have been retired by now.

And there’s this stigma, this idea, that hiring an attorney, to somewhat even the balance between a human being and a massive fortune 500 company or an insurance company, that somehow that’s something to be stigmatized in society.

I think we’ve come here under effective, or frankly, very, very frightening advertising. And the McDonald’s hot coffee case: this misinformation campaign that’s put out there to stigmatize people that hire an attorney has been effective.

But it’s strange to me that the right to counsel and the right to a jury trial, which was written into our constitution has somehow become a bad word in today’s society. There is no better equalizing force than the jury system in this country.

And that equalizing force can’t be harnessed without a lawyer. The companies and the insurance carriers know that. That’s why they tell you don’t go hire a lawyer.