So should you hire an out of state attorney? This is a question many people must answer, including those injured by a failed medical device or a prescription drug. I have had several clients who were initially skeptical about hiring an attorney who practiced 500 or 2,000 miles away. And I get it.

For many types of cases, choosing an attorney in your hometown or in your state is best. Do you need to set up a will with powers of attorney? Ask around and call the good lawyer who lives down the street or across town. Going through a divorce? Have a traffic ticket? Did someone breach a contract? Find someone in your city who comes highly recommended.

But what about product liability? Specifically, what about medical device or prescription drug cases? You need to find the right person to represent you, even if that person practices law in another state or across the country. Let’s look at some pros and cons of hiring an out of state product liability lawyer:

CONS How Do You Know If the Lawyer is Competent?

It’s a good question. In some cases you simply can’t know, or at least you can’t know until it’s too late. Often, if you become aware of a law firm from another state, you stumbled on the firm as a result of aggressive advertising. This does not necessarily mean the firm is not competent, but marketing does not make a firm competent. Many of these firms spend thousands (even millions) on mass marketing and TV commercials and Internet advertising. This is why you found them first. Their primary focus is to “sign you up.” So tread carefully.

You Do Not Get to Meet Face-to-Face

It is usually better to sit down with your attorney. If you hire an attorney who practices 1,500 miles away, this meeting may not be possible. And even if you meet once, you will be prevented by distance from meeting face to face on a regular basis. Something has been lost in our modern age when we rely almost exclusively on our smart phones and our computers to interact. That said, we live in 2017, not 1967. This communication trend will only intensify. And as I suggest below, it may not be the obstacle it seems to be.

The Out of State Lawyer May Not Understand Your Specific State Laws

The out of state lawyer may not understand specific laws that govern cases in your state. For example, for product liability cases, many states have consumer protection statutes that may create a unique cause of action for your injury in your state. How can you be sure a lawyer across the country will know about these state consumer protection laws? The answer: you have to ask your attorney how he or she plans to handle your specific case, including all relevant state law claims.

PROS You Need a Specialist

For medical device and drug cases, you need to find someone who specializes. It could be a disaster for you to choose the kindly man who years ago set up your limited liability company to represent you in a nationwide multidistrict litigation (MDL) involving a failed medical device or drug. The likelihood is that lawyer (whose office may be around the corner from your house) has no idea how to handle a product liability case or even knows what an MDL is. Most of these local lawyers will admit they do not handle these kinds of cases and may refer you to someone else. But some may try to take it forward. And that would be a mistake. You do not want your divorce lawyer to handle your hernia mesh or Xarelto lawsuit, just like you don’t want your podiatrist to operate on your shoulder.

So it is far better to choose a lawyer from another state who has handled fifteen or fifty artificial hip cases than to go with the local person you know, even if that person is very nice and did a great job handling your last real estate closing.

Pro Hace Vice Admission and Online Legal Research

Lawyers are allowed to represent clients in other states through pro hac vice admission. Pro hac vice means “for this turn” or “for this occasion.” It allows me to represent a client in another state for a specific purpose and for a specific case if I complete all the written requirements for this limited admission. It is straightforward and simple.

Beyond that, online legal research services like Westlaw and Lexis allow lawyers to access the complete laws of any state. I can read Oregon appellate court opinions on an Oregon consumer protection statute in seconds. I have virtually the same access to Oregon’s state laws as any Oregon lawyer has (as that Oregon lawyer is most likely using online research services just like I am). In the modern age, information everywhere is at our fingertips.

Proximity is Overrated

It is comforting to imagine that the lawyer who has helped your family in legal matters over the years can also effectively represent you in your medical device case against a multinational corporation. But these cases can be complex, and they can take years to resolve; you do not want to risk your valuable case on the local lawyer who must learn the case as he goes along. Beyond that, we do live in an age with extraordinary ways to communicate: phone, fax, email, text, PDF, FedEx, Skype, Drop Box. I have had phone calls with prospective clients 2,000 miles away, and five minutes after the call ends the client sends me hundreds of pages of medical records in scanned attachments to an email. The truth is, it is easier to handle most cases electronically. In fact virtually every court in the country now has electronic case filing. I regularly file lawsuits in federal courts in California or Ohio or Texas while sitting in my office in Raleigh, North Carolina.

So What Should You Do?

It depends. You may be quite lucky and live down the street from a very good lawyer who focuses his or her law practice on medical device and drug cases. If not, you should not limit your search to your home state. Do your homework on any lawyer, whether in state or out of state. You should read online law firm reviews and online testimonials. You can even ask the prospective lawyer for references from former clients and give those people a call. If the firm has a website or a blog, review the site carefully. Get a sense if the lawyer knows the subject area. Try to discern if the firm website is geared simply to marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) or if the site provides useful information. When you get the retainer agreement from the out of state lawyer, review it carefully and ask any questions about any provision that concerns you. But do not exclude very good lawyers simply because they may not live in your state. Your best option may well be to hire an out of state attorney for your product liability case.

Here’s a scenario: you had hip replacement surgery several years ago. In 2015 the hip began to hurt and cause other problems. You had revision surgery in 2016. While at home one afternoon recovering from the revision surgery, you see seventeen commercials from personal injury law firms asking if you recently had revision surgery following the failure of the [fill in the brand name] artificial hip. If so, lawyers are standing by to assist you with your case.

(At this point, if relevant to your situation please substitute “IVC filter” or “hernia mesh” or “artificial knee” or any number of risky prescription drugs in the scenario above for “artificial hip.”)

So your next thought may be: I should represent myself. This is known as being a pro se litigant. If that is your thought, your next question should be, “what steps should I take to make sure I get a full and fair settlement for my product liability case?” It’s a great question.

The First Thing You Do

In a word: hoard. Collect, gather, organize. Seriously, it is time to start building your case file. You will need to collect everything related to your product liability failure and to your injuries. What is relevant? Well, virtually everything could be relevant to your product failure injury claim, so gather and keep track of and organize everything. When in doubt, identify it and file it away.

Some of the documentation and evidence you will need:

• Medical records. This is rather obvious, but don’t assume just because you obtained the operative notes from your surgeon in the revision surgery that you have all you need. You don’t. You will also want to gather your complete medical history from the surgeon, your primary doctor, your physical therapist, any other medical care providers, even chiropractors and pharmacists. You need to gather your complete medical file. The defense will ask for everything, because one thing they will be searching for is a defense to your claim (e.g., were you rollerblading with your grandchildren the week before your revision surgery, taking a horrific spill?)
• Journal of symptoms/pain. It may sound like overkill, but keeping detailed notes on the onset of pain, the severity of pain, the levels of pain through the day, and other information may well win your case or increase your settlement offer. For example, what if you and your husband were competitive square dancers, and traveled the United States to dance and compete? Then your artificial hip failed, you needed revision surgery, and complications from the revision surgery forced you to retire from square dancing? That scenario sets up a very plausible argument for additional compensation, and it also sets up a loss of consortium claim for your spouse, as he just lost his dance partner.
• Explanted components. I wrote about retrieving the failed medical device from your revision surgery here, so you can read about that process by clicking the link, but it is vitally important that you send a letter to your hospital administrator and to your surgeon prior to the revision surgery so all medical staff are on alert to retain and preserve the explanted components. These components will certainly be needed as evidence as your case advances. And do not let the manufacturer’s sales representative, who may be in the room during your revision surgery, take away the explanted components “for further study.”
• Medical bills. Keep every one of them. From the surgeon, the hospital, receipts from the pharmacist, everything related to your hip surgeries.
• Expense journal. Keep careful track of all expenses: out-of-pocket expenses, co-pays, costs for prescriptions, mileage to and from the university hospital in the next town.
• Tax information. Did you miss two months of work in 2016 following your revision surgery? Did your 2016 W-2 show that you made $6,000.00 less than you made in 2014 and 2015? Make copies of your tax information going back to the time of your original implant surgery, and keep copies for every year through the year of your revision to the present day.
• Health insurance information. Gather all documentation related to any payments or services provided by your health insurance company. Most likely, the health insurer will expect to be reimbursed for payments it made on your behalf relating to a failed medical device or harmful prescription drug. You will eventually have to deal with that health care lien.

Not all of this information will be useful to your case. But in the early stages, you will not know what is useful and what is not (especially if you are working without a lawyer). So if you have any doubt about “relevance,” keep the document or the receipt or the letter. And keep all of the information carefully organized. If you have a receipt, paperclip an explanation (“second prescription for Percocet following my revision surgery”).

A Word of Caution

Let me be clear: I do not recommend representing yourself in a product liability case. There are simply too many things that you can overlook or that can go wrong. The best evidence that you should not represent yourself may be this: the medical device or drug manufacturer really wants you to represent yourself. Unrepresented parties often receive much smaller settlement amounts than do injured people who are represented by competent lawyers. It’s not that product liability lawyers are smarter than other people; it’s simply that a person who does this work day-in-day-out, month-after-month, for years will be more experienced in maneuvering through the dozens of steps it takes to prepare a good product liability case for (1) the best settlement or (2) trial.

But if you take on your product liability case yourself, you should start by building your case file, one document or record at a time. Good luck.

Note: This post is not legal advice. And I don’t have TV commercials.