Practice Areas

• Workers' Compensation
• Personal Injury
• Social Security Disability

Library

General

• Common Legal Terms
• The Ten Worst Insurance Companies

view all

Testimonials

"If I ever have a friend or co-worker who is injured on the job I would certainly recommend they contact Oxner Thomas + Permar to receive the best service they would ever experience. In my opinion OTP is the #1 law firm in North Carolina."

"I was trying to do it by myself for about 7 months before I finally realized that my employeer was taking advantage of me."

"I will always be grateful to Thomas Clare and OTP law and I highly recommend them to anyone who has an injury and needs an attorney."

"Eric Richardson and Shelby Kernodle were wonderful to me!
"

"This was my first time ever needing help from a lawyer.  I can see why you were highly recommended to me."

"You are a 10!"

"My family and I really appreciate all you have done for us."

"Great negotiators!"

"I found Oxner Thomas + Permar just by doing a Google search.  I learned so much in your free book, and I was so glad that you could represent me in my case."

"One word describes you: professional!"

more

Information for injured workers in North Carolina

Q: What is Board Certification? Does it matter?

A:

All lawyers in North Carolina are required to graduate from law school (usually taking three years to do so), pass a half-day ethics examination, and then pass a two-day bar examination. After that you can call yourself a lawyer and practice any area of the law you like. Ethically we're required to seek assistance in a case if we aren't really competent in that area of the law.  Less than 2% of all attorneys who attempt  a much more difficult examination, the Board Certification exams, actually pass.

To even sit for the exam a laywer must have several years of experience in the particular field, have undergone extensive additional training in that area of the law, have many of their cases reviewed to see how well they performed, undergo a secret evaluation by your competitors, and then take a one-day examination. Then, and only then, may you use the term "specialist" to describe yourself.

Does this matter for your case? There are good attorneys who have not taken the specialization exam. However when you have the opportunity to go with a firm with multiple specialists or a firm with none it may not make sense to go with the firm which has no specialists.