This page will describe a few of the ways we look up information about lawyers online. The links below will take you to websites controlled by others, so we are not responsible for the content.  

FLORIDA LAWYERS

We usually begin checking on a Florida lawyer by reviewing the following websites:  

1)   The Florida Bar Association Lawyer Look-Up This link will take you to the Florida Bar Association's Lawyer search page, from which you can find out if the lawyer is a member of the Florida Bar, his professional address, the date admitted to practice law in Florida, and whether in good standing, inactive, or retired.   

2)   Paid Malpractice Claims Info
This link will take you to a site that is maintained on the Internet by the Florida Department of Financial Services (formerly Department of Insurance), which offers information on malpractice claims paid by malpractice insurance companies for specific lawyers, doctors, and other professionals in Florida for the last 10 years. Very few states offer this type of information to the public.  When choosing the county it is best that you choose "all" because lawyers may have had claims in more than one county.  Watch out for variations of lawyer's or law firm's name.  Many law firms change their names frequently as lawyers join and leave the firm, and we have seen lawyer data listed sometimes using the lawyer's  middle name, and sometimes not.  It may be best to search using only the last name of the lawyer.  Prior to March 1988, insurers were only allowed to report the name of the law firm instead of the name of the individual lawyer deemed responsible for the malpractice claim.   While this paid malpractice claim database often has very useful information, unfortunately there is much information we know it does NOT have, including:

• Pending malpractice cases
• Malpractice cases the lawyer may have won on a technicality 
• Malpractice claims from when the lawyer practiced in any other state
• Malpractice claims paid by the lawyer himself rather than malpractice insurance
• Disciplinary actions brought by the Florida Bar or other states
• Paid malpractice claims which were inadvertently not reported by an insurance company (we know one or two specific occurrences and it probably happens more often)

Open and ongoing lawsuits, or lawsuits resulting in judgments which have not been paid, can usually only be reliably looked up by going to the individual State Circuit Court locations in each county where the physician may have been sued. This of course is extremely time consuming. Small counties may give you some of this information over the phone, but most are too busy, and will invite you to come in and attempt to look it up yourself. Very few malpractice cases are in federal court. 

If you would like to order more information from the Florida Department of Insurance about specific closed malpractice claims reported on that site, here is a link to tell you how to do that: order.

FLORIDA AND NON-FLORIDA LAWYERS

3) Martindale-Hubbell Biographical Listing and Rating
For many years Martindale-Hubbell has been the premier lawyer directory used by members of the legal profession to find out basic information about other lawyers.  Its online listings frequently include large professional biographies for individual lawyers and their law firms, although since there is a charge to the lawyer based on the size of a biography, some lawyers or firms have only a very rudimentary listing, and some no listing at all. If you find a lawyer listed in Martindale-Hubbell be sure to look for "rating" information (usually a separate link) on his biography.  After you have determined if the lawyer is rated AV, BV, or CV, they you should visit the page with the rating explanation on Martindale-Hubbell's site to find out how the ratings are determined and what they mean.  

4) West Legal Directory / FindLaw  Lawyer Search    This online directory does not have the lawyer rating system that Martindale-Hubbell has, nor are the biographical listings usually as complete.  Yet some lawyers and firms now have extensive listings with this legal directory in lieu of, or in addition to, Martindale-Hubbell listings, so both sites should be checked.    

5) "Google" the Lawyer 
One growing source of lawyer information that should never be overlooked is simply to do a general Internet search on the lawyer using one or more of the popular Internet search engines, like Google.

After making sure you have the correct spelling of the name, just insert the lawyer's name in the search box above and hit search.  Try it both with and without quotation marks around it, and see what comes up.  You may find a wealth of information, including articles published by the lawyer, the lawyer's law firm website, newspaper stories about the lawyer or wherein the lawyer was quoted, and many other useful things.  

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