If you have been injured in a cycling crash and live hours away from our office, you’re not alone. You may be surprised to know the majority of our clients all live more than an hour or two from our Clearwater office. In fact, it is so routine for us to be working with out of town clients, we never give it a second thought; nor do they.

I realize there could be an impression in someone’s mind they might need to come into their lawyer’s office from time to time and they may feel reluctant to hire someone in another city. If anything good has come out of the Coronavirus this year, it has awakened us to the convenience of Zoom meetings. Honestly, even clients who live within a few miles of our office rarely find a need to come in themselves. In those rare circumstances we need to meet face to face, we simply come to you.

Let me give you an example of why meeting face to face is rarely necessary. In some cases, the parties agree to conduct pre-lawsuit settlement conferences using a neutral mediator. These are also used in virtually every case which results in a lawsuit. The process is called mediation. Before the Coronavirus, these mediation conferences were held live and in-person at the mediator’s office, typically in the county where the injury occurred. Everyone had to drive and spend half a day there. They are all now held quite seamlessly by Zoom.