The following information is provided to give a brief overview and to help answer questions regarding personal injury, wrongful death, and malpractice.

Personal injury and death cases. Al Shapiro and his staff can assist you with any type of injury or death case. If the injury occurred as a result of the fault of another person, you may be entitled to recover for your pain and suffering, wage loss, permanent disability, impairment of earning capacity, medical bills, and perhaps other elements of recovery. Even if you were partially at fault in causing the accident, you may be entitled to recover under Louisiana law. We will afford you a free consultation and will investigate your case without charge to you. In fact, if you employ us to represent you in a personal injury, wrongful death, medical malpractice or legal malpractice case, you will never pay our law firm a penny, and we will provide the necessary funds to move your case forward.

Communications with clients. Our clients are encouraged to call about their case. We promise that your phone calls will be returned within 24 hours unless the attorney is in court or on vacation, in which case your call will be returned as soon as possible. You will speak with Al Shapiro directly, not a paralegal or secretary, unless you request to do so.

Legal malpractice. The most important issued in legal malpractice cases is frequently that of prescription (statute of limitations). Generally, the one year prescriptive period in a legal malpractice case begins running when the client knows or should have known of facts which lead him to believe that his attorney has made a mistake. This period is also suspended during the time that one continues to be represented by negligent attorney. However, there is also a three year period that begins to run on the date of the mistake and is not subject to any interruption or suspension whatever. So, even if the attorney continues to represent you and even if you have no knowledge of the mistake, your claim will be lost after a period of three years from the date of his mistake. This rule comes into play very frequently and many clients lose their claims as a result. This is yet another example of the legislation catering to special interest groups in derogation of the rights of ordinary citizens.