Am I Over Contacting My Attorney?

Location: Los Angeles, CA

I received second-degree burns and permanent scars/ skin discoloration due to a technician’s negligence at a local medspa and retained a local, mid-sized law firm to handle my personal injury case.

When I first retained the firm, they gave me a basic outline of the process: they said they would contact the medspa that caused the injury and obtain its insurance information. After about a month, I had not heard anything, so I texted my attorney. He then instructed me to see a specific doctor so that my injuries could be formally documented.

I didn’t hear anything for another month, so I reached out again. At that point, they told me that these cases take time and that I had one year from the date of the incident to file a lawsuit. They also provided me with the doctor’s report documenting my injuries.

Because of the tone of those conversations, I started to feel like I was being overly persistent, so I backed off. This is the first time I’ve ever dealt with attorneys, so I’m not sure what is considered normal communication or what constitutes being too demanding.

I then went approximately four months without hearing anything from the firm. At that point, I reached out to the paralegal because I wanted to make sure the case was moving forward and, ideally, resolve it before having to file in court.

About five days later, the attorney handling my case called me. During that conversation, I learned that my case had essentially fallen through the cracks because the paralegal I had previously been communicating with had left the firm shortly after our last contact. The medspa had never responded to the firm’s request for its insurance information, and no one had followed up with them. I also learned that the doctor had not provided an estimate of the cost of my future treatment.

The attorney told me that he would follow up on both the insurance information and the treatment costs. He suggested that I call again in a month. My understanding was that he was saying this primarily to reassure me rather than because he expected there necessarily to be a substantive update by then.

It has now been a month. I called the office, and an assistant told me there were still no updates but that the attorney would call me. He has not done so.

At this point, we are approximately three months away from the deadline to file in court, and I am concerned that very little substantive progress has been made on my case. I also worry that the firm may be intentionally allowing the case to get closer to the filing deadline because doing so could potentially put me in a weaker negotiating position or result in them receiving a larger share of any eventual settlement.

I also wonder whether the fact that my injury is less severe than the automobile accident cases that seem to make up much of the firm's practice is affecting the amount of attention they are giving my case.

Am I overreacting, or is this a fairly normal pace for a personal injury case? At this point, should I be concerned about the lack of communication and the fact that basic things (such as obtaining the medspa’s insurance information and an estimate of my treatment costs) still appear to be unresolved with only three months remaining before the filing deadline?