Legal Question in Workers Comp in California

Your mother is free to look for another lawyer at any time. However, before you assume her lawyer hasn't done anything for her, she should arrange to meet with him/her to discuss her case, and the most recent activity. Often, we lawyers do plenty for our clients, but since our clients are not in our office watching us day to day, there would be no way for our client to know.

Good luck.

Are you certain the attorney "has not done anything yet" ???

You've described a Mandatory Settlement Conference, except the defense attorney never 'sits down' with the injured worker... the defense attorney and the applicant's attorney speak and exchange evidence in one room, then the applicant's attorney speaks privately with mom in another room.

It sounds like there is a serious disagreement between the attorneys on the value of mom's case.

If the trial date was not scheduled at that hearing, there is a serious problem with the medical evidence...or the judge would have granted your mom's attorney's request for trial.

The very last thing you want to do is proceed to trial with lousy evidence,

So WRITE and FAX for an in-office conference with the attorney as to why the claim did not resolve at the last conference and why the medical evidence isn't ready for trial, giving the attorney a deadline for this meeting.

if the attorney refuses the meeting... Time to talk to a CERTIFIED SPECIALIST in Workers Compensation law.

There's a lot of guys out there who didn't take the Extra Bar exam in Workers Comp who are teaching themselves as they go along... sounds like mom hired one of those.

PROBLEM: there's only one 15% fee, and the new lawyer will have to 'share' that fee with the first lawyer. and Mom decided to stay with the first attorney for two years now, so that first attorney will get the 'lion's share' of the fee while the second attorney will be doing all the heavy lifting.

So many attorneys will not want the claim. So the attorney search must be meticulous, with a great deal of homework about that attorney's expertise before she signs anything.