Disability attorneys are often stereotyped as selfish “ambulance chasers.” We live in a country where lawsuits are the norm. There is enough wiggle room in the law and enough mistrust among people that lawsuits are a common solution to one’s problems. Not to mention that since the United States is the third most populous country in the world, we have a ton of cases being processed every day. With all these lawsuits in the country’s legal system, it is easy to identify numerous personal injury cases that seem frivolous or unnecessary. However, I would like to take a moment to try to turn this conversation in a different direction.

The first targets people go after when upset about these types of legal cases are the disability attorneys themselves. Some claim that their profession allows manipulative people who suffer minor injuries to go after honest and hard-working people who have suffered a bad blow. If you stop and think about it, that notion is a bit absurd. I’d compare that to yelling at a customer service representative on the phone because a product he bought didn’t work properly. It’s not their fault, but they are an easy target to vent your frustration on. We have the wrong law in this country that covers personal injury and disability law. There are many cases where you suffer an injury due to the actual negligence of another and deserve compensation. Being the majority legitimate cases, there are others where people try to abuse their power and take advantage of the law. That is exactly why we have courts and juries deciding these cases.

Disability attorneys are simply doing a job that needs to be done. If they didn’t, then all those cases that really deserve attention, along with all those victims that really deserve compensation, would never see justice. So instead of labeling certain lawyers “ambulance chasers,” perhaps the focus should be on those who hire lawyers for malicious purposes.