"When victims are ready, they will call us. Until then, we just mourn for them."
In the aftermath of any tragedy, evidence disappears with the passage of time. The sooner a highly-experienced law firm and its team of investigators begins handling the case, the more complete the evidence will be.
But following a tragedy, evidence preservation is the farthest thought from the minds of grieving loved ones. Those who experience catastrophic loss must first grapple with the shock of their unexpected losses.
"We are fathers and mothers first; we are sons and daughters first," said Attorney James Mertes, Managing Partner of the Law Firm of Mertes and Mertes. "Our hearts break with every tragedy our community suffers," he added.
During the days following a catastrophe, other lawyers often send letters, make phone calls, or even show up on family doorsteps pursuing clients. "That is absolutely not something that our law firm will ever do," Mertes said. "Our law firm does not chase ambulances," Mertes added. "Doing that could not possibly be more opposite to who we are," he said. "We let our decades of outstanding results do the advertising for us," Mertes explained.
"When a tragedy occurs in our community, we immediately assemble a team, even before we are contacted, so that we can be ready to move in as soon as we are hired," Mertes said. "But we never chase ambulances, he said. "We never have and we never will," he added.
"When victims are ready, they will call us," he said. "Until then, we just mourn for them."
"It is such a sensitive and delicate issue," Mertes said. "As lawyers and investigators, we would prefer to be at the crash scenes before the vehicles have even been moved," he explained. "The sooner we are hired, the sooner we can get to work," he added.
"But as fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, we would prefer to wait as long as it takes for grieving loved ones to muster the strength to contact us," he explained.
"I would rather never be hired at all than to send a letter or make a sales call to a heartbroken loved one in their time of misery," Mertes added.
Overflowing national law firms spend hundreds of thousands of dollars advertising their services. They use non-lawyer spokespersons in their efforts to compete for cases that Mertes & Mertes handles with a devoted, individualized approach. "When a client of ours dies in a field, we are out in the field with our experts and investigators, covered in mud as they sift through the evidence," Mertes explained. "After a building fire involving one of our clients, we smell like smoke for days," Mertes added. "If it is a motor vehicle crash, we are out there in the roadway, as our investigators and experts measure and identify the gouge marks," he explained.
Asked why the law firm has never sent a solicitation letter following a tragedy, Mertes concluded, "it's just not how we were raised."
The Law Firm of Mertes & Mertes can be contacted at 815-626-1500. Or not. Whatever gives you the greatest comfort is just fine with us.