You are about to hand a stranger a one-third share of your recovery and the fate of a serious injury claim. Spend thirty minutes verifying their track record first. Most of the checks below are free, public, and take only a few clicks — and they separate a genuine railroad litigator from a billboard.
Verify the bar license and disciplinary record
Start with the single most reliable source: your state's bar association. Every state bar publishes an official attorney-lookup tool that confirms whether a lawyer's license is active and in good standing and discloses any public disciplinary history. This is free and authoritative. A suspended license or a pattern of sanctions is a hard stop; a clean record is a baseline, not a guarantee of skill. You can find your state's bar through the American Bar Association's directory of state bars.
Confirm real railroad and transit experience
A clean license tells you nothing about whether the attorney has actually handled a train case. Railroad and transit claims involve common-carrier duty, government-immunity notice deadlines, FELA for rail workers, and event-recorder and signal evidence — a specialized field. Ask directly how many train, railroad, or transit-agency cases the individual attorney has personally handled, and whether any went against the specific operator in your case. We cover the exact phrasing in our guide to questions to ask about attorney experience.
Read case results critically
Firm websites love to list seven-figure verdicts. Treat them as marketing until verified. Two questions cut through the gloss: Did the attorney I would actually work with personally handle that result? and Was it a train or railroad case, or an unrelated car-accident or slip-and-fall matter? Past results never guarantee future outcomes — bar rules require that disclaimer for a reason — but relevant, attributable results are a real signal where generic big numbers are not.
Use online reviews the right way
Star averages are a weak signal, and a high rating built from unrelated reviews tells you little about a complex injury case. Read the specific, detailed reviews from injury clients: did the attorney communicate, explain the fee, and fight the case? Discount vague five-star and one-star posts alike, and never let reviews outweigh the verifiable facts — bar standing and documented rail experience.
Ask for verifiable examples in the consultation
The free consultation is your chance to test the track record in person. Ask for one or two specific examples of train or transit cases the attorney handled, what the operator was, and how the case resolved. A genuine railroad litigator answers comfortably and concretely; evasion or pivoting to generic "we win millions" language is a red flag. Bring the rest of your vetting questions from the consultation checklist, and compare two or three attorneys before you sign.
