Sounds like a tough position. I have a friend plus family that have suffered injuries. My friend was injured on the job due to no safety training for a machine he was working on. The manual said two people were required to properly man the machine; the other employee had quit two weeks earlier. My friend was tired the night he was injured. Said had the accident happened a minute or so later he would have died. Prior to his accident, the company had not performed ANY training for safely operating the machine properly. Apparently, OSHA was never notified of any of the mess.

His lawyer 'settled' (did NOT litigate, did NOT file a lawsuit, just sent a 'settlement offer' to the workmen's comp insurance company) for a very low amount of money. My friend sustained life long injuries and I believe his lawyer simply didn't want to do any real work on the matter.

Ditto for family members. They were rear ended by a semi tractor truck and came within inches of death. The lazy lazy law firm they hired ALSO presented a 'settlement offer'; they were either afraid or too lazy to file an actual real world law suit.

I'd say only around 1 in 100 lawyers are willing to file a lawsuit and litigate like a tiger. The other 99 are settlement pussies.