The auto accident lawyers of Michigan Auto Law are proud to announce that partner Steven M. Gursten has gotten the largest settlement and the second highest verdict in the entire state of Michigan for 2008, according to a year-end report by Michigan Lawyers Weekly.

In addition to achieving some of the highest car and truck accident settlements each year for injury victims in Michigan, Steve Gursten has received the largest jury verdict for four of the past seven years

Said Lawyers Weekly about Gursten’s successful record in 2005: “…considering the fact that there are approximately 4,000 Michigan attorneys who say they handle personal injury cases as part of their practice, the odds of accomplishing this feat are astronomical.”

Our personal injury lawyers Lawrence E. Gursten and Steven M. Gursten have been named “The Best Lawyers in Metro Detroit” for 2009 by DBusiness Magazine. Below is a press release that appears on the PRWeb press release newswire.

Southfield, MI (PRWEB) November 18, 2008 – Car accident lawyer Lawrence E. Gursten and truck accident specialist Steven M. Gursten of Michigan Auto Law have been named “The Best Lawyers in Metro Detroit” for 2009 by DBusiness Magazine, a Detroit business journal.

The magazine honored Michigan lawyers who are well-versed in nearly every aspect of the law, including auto negligence, personal injury, mergers and acquisitions and corporate governance. The attorneys were chosen based on peer reviews from the Best Lawyers in America list for metro Detroit, by the Best Lawyers in America peer review publication.

Steve Gursten and Larry Gursten were named under the personal injury litigation specialty. Michigan Auto Law (Gursten, Koltonow, Gursten, Christensen and Raitt, PC) is a third-generation law firm with 16 lawyers specializing in helping people who have been seriously injured or killed in car accidents, truck accidents and motorcycle accidents throughout Michigan. The firm has received the top reported jury verdict for automobile accident cases in Michigan for four of the past seven years.

An important theme from the No-Fault Law Institute Seminar this past week was to encourage Michigan trial lawyers to take on smaller cases against auto insurance companies when they deliberately refuse to pay out on small first-party auto claims that they are clearly obligated to pay.    If there are enough Michigan lawyers willing to take on these bad faith insurance companies over smaller cases, perhaps as a profession lawyers can start to make these insurance companies behave better and honor claims that should be paid.  And if you heed the following lesson from a fellow Michigan trial lawyer, you can make a decent living while protecting the public. 

Reprint of Steven M. Gursten’s Letter to Michigan Lawyers Weekly

Rarely does the Michigan Lawyers Weekly completely miss the point of an important case, but I feel compelled to respectfully suggest that your recent story on Benefiel v. Auto Owners Insurance Company¹ did exactly this.  

Benefiel is the most important automobile negligence case to be decided since the Michigan Supreme Court decided Kreiner v. Fischer.²   Benefiel is a published decision, and it may hopefully help lawyers and judges better understand Michigan’s chaotic threshold law.     

How Can All lawyers in Michigan be The Best?
As a lawyer myself, I have always been bothered by how many lawyers advertise.  And the internet seems to make most of these problems worse.  When it comes to selecting a lawyer to help you, there are very few rules to protect the public from false or misleading advertising.  This lack of rules is the reason why so many personal injury lawyers have websites and advertisements calling themselves the “best lawyer in Michigan” or “Michigan’s top personal injury lawyer.”