Why We’re Different

Mobility & Convenience

Many law firms advertise that they are available 24/7 and can send an attorney to your house right away. While you may see this as an added feature, it is simply an advertising ploy. Just about any lawyer would make a house call 24/7 for the right case. What these ads don’t tell you is that they are available nights and weekends only when asking you to sign a contract with them. Once you have signed, you’re required to operate on their schedule. In-person meetings, phone conferences, and client communication mostly happen during working hours when most clients are working themselves. This can make pursuing your claim so inconvenient that you may think it’s not worth it if you have to take time away from work or from your loved ones.

In today’s new reality, safety and convenience are more important than ever as many clients seek alternatives to traditional in-person services. You may want to limit the time you spend in stores and offices. One of the most important lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is that brick-and-mortar offices are largely unnecessary. The shift to a remote working model has advantages for both you and us.

First, law firms that have been quick to adapt to a changing environment have realized that the absence of high overhead, including traditional office space, leads to savings for their clients. Without the burden of high expenses, we can give honest advice (as we are ethically bound to do) on whether Lopez Law Firm is the right fit for you, or if a lawsuit is even in your best interest.

Second, as an agile law firm we are able to meet with you outside of traditional working hours and in places that are most convenient to you. We will try and limit to the best of our ability any time taken away from work or time with family. If in-person meetings are unsafe or inconvenient, most documents can be signed online, and face-to-face meetings can happen on videoconferencing apps like Zoom or FaceTime.

Of course, litigation demands that some in-person events can’t be handled remotely or outside of traditional working hours, such as depositions, mediations and trial. For these events, shared office spaces and cooperative coworking environments allow our firm to move meeting locations to an area of town that is most convenient for you.

Communication & Transparency

According to the State Bar of Texas, the single biggest complaint for most clients is lack of communication. At many firms, clients can go weeks and sometimes months without hearing from their lawyer. Even worse, when they reach out to their lawyer via phone, email, or text, it often takes just as long to get a response. This usually happens for two reasons. The first reason is that many small firms simply don’t have efficient ways of tracking and responding to client communication. An attorney simply forgets to return a call and the client gets lost in the shuffle. Second, lawyers in large firms are simply overworked and do not have time to return calls or messages in a timely manner. To them, clients are just a number or a task that can be responded to at a later date. Their clients are not humanized and they feel no urgency or empathy for their client’s point of view.

In contrast, Lopez Law Firm is a small firm that sees clients as individuals. Firm Principal Steven A. Lopez personally meets with all clients of the firm and gets to know them. Our firm represents people, not numbers. With regard to client communication, we set ourselves apart in two important ways. First, we are a small firm with a limited number of cases, allowing us to communicate in a timely manner with all of our clients. Second, we distinguish ourselves by leveraging technology, like robust client management software and automation tools, to track and communicate quickly with our clients via phone, text or email.

Transparency is a big part of our core values. We aim to communicate clearly and manage expectations. To this end, we work with clients to set reasonable goals to recover reasonable compensation quickly, and keep them informed along the way. A key to this honest communication is having a real conversation about what you hope to get out of this process. Once we hear your goals, we can craft a plan that aligns with your idea of justice. This also means that we take the time to fully inform you about how your goals compare to our experience in pursuing claims like yours. We try not to overpromise and will never sell you an unreachable goal just to get you to sign with us. Hopefully, we can start our relationship with a clear understanding of what we are trying to accomplish and how you will benefit from our representation.

Innovation & Technology

Lopez Law Firm sets itself apart by delivering a client-centered litigation experience. This means that everything we do is focused on getting you the best results in the most convenient and time-effective manner. By leveraging technology and innovation, we stay in constant communication with you to see how we can better serve your needs. The tools we use to keep you informed and satisfied include:

Meeting with clients at times and places that are convenient to them – we come to them;
Using client portals so clients can easily upload documents for review;
Communicating via text for short, simple messages or reminders;
Making documents available online for client’s signature;
Scheduling phone conferences and in-person meetings outside normal business hours;
Using videoconferencing to meet remotely yet face-to-face; and
Scheduling necessary in-person meetings at conference rooms in locations that are convenient to the client.

The Small Firm Advantage

A Litigation Plan Tailored To Your Goals

You have many choices when considering which law firm to hire for your personal injury case in San Antonio. They come in all shapes and sizes, from solo operations to large firms with hundreds of attorneys. Firms of all sizes, but especially big firms, like to advertise the strength of their resources. They believe that having the deepest pockets or the most attorneys on staff are an advantage for all of their clients. In some cases, a large footprint can be an asset. But what they don’t tell you is that, for most cases, having unlimited resources can be a real liability for clients.

You see, in addition to being able to communicate more effectively and adapt to changes, small firms are able to custom-tailor a litigation strategy based on each client’s individual goals. To some clients, the most important thing is getting through tragedy and getting on with their life. For others, it is recovering the most compensation possible, no matter how long it takes.

At our firm, you aren’t just a number. Every case is personal to us. Because we’re small, we can adjust the way we tackle a case based on your goals. There is no cookie-cutter mold we try and squeeze every client into. At Lopez Law Firm, strategizing is fun for us. We take the time to analyze which approach is best and keep an eye toward innovative approaches to reach your goals as quickly as possible.

No Pressure To Run Up Medical Costs

A large staff, marketing budget, and office space mean that there can be pressure on big law firms to generate as much money in legal fees as possible. Personal injury lawyers make their money by setting their fees as a percentage of a settlement offer or jury verdict. Often, the monetary value of a case is determined by the amount of medical bills incurred by the client. Therefore, the higher the medical bills, the more money the lawyer will likely make. Unfortunately, this leads some firms to push their clients to undergo prolonged or unneeded medical treatment.

What lawyers sometimes don’t make clear to their clients is that the lawyer, more often than not, takes their fee first. Then after the lawyer gets paid, the doctors are paid next, leaving whatever is left to the client as compensation for their pain and suffering, lost wages and other damages. In this scenario, doctors and lawyers win by driving up medical costs, but the client is often left with little recovery beyond their medical treatment, some of which might have been unnecessary in the first place.

At Lopez Law Firm we will never ask you to undergo the risk, pain and inconvenience of in order to drive up the value of your injury claim. The choice to undergo medical treatment is always a decision for clients to make in consultation with their doctor. We will give clients all the facts necessary to help them make a decision in a way that helps them the most and optimizes their compensation and recovery.

No Inflated Case Expenses

Because large law firms have deep pockets, they often approach litigation with a one-size-fits-all, shotgun approach to case expenses. Their financial resources allow them to throw tons of money at every case in the same way. This may seem beneficial. But, while some firms flaunt their ability to outspend opponents, they fail to make clear that the money they spend belongs to their clients and not to them. They rack up huge expenses on videos, expensive graphics, and highly-paid experts and pass on the bills to their clients without evaluating whether or not the case warrants the expense or not. In the end, those expenses always come out of your verdict or settlement.

Lopez Law Firm approaches each client and each case individually and never uses a one-size-fits-all approach. We keenly evaluate the potential recovery in each case and game plan with an eye toward a fast, cost-effective resolution. Some cases require large expenses and the assistance of the best experts in the field. However, many cases are able to be resolved at a more reasonable cost that has less impact on our client’s bottom line. We take pride in our ability to make an accurate cost-benefit analysis in each and every case to maximize our client’s net recovery. We can only do this because we are a small firm, not a machine that gets fed the same way for every client.