How Do Personal Injury Attorney Fees Work?

If you have ever retained the services of a personal injury lawyer, you will have noticed that in almost all cases they do not charge an hourly rate. Most lawyers who focus their practice on car and truck accident cases, slip and falls, pedestrian accidents, and medical malpractice cases, will charge a certain percentage of any amount won. You may wonder why this is the case.

Most lawsuits cost a lot of money to litigate. A good lawyer can cost several hundred dollars per hour. With your average lawsuit lasting a few years, this could cost a client thousands of dollars in attorney fees alone. For personal injury and negligence cases, if attorneys charged regular people this amount of money, they would never be able to afford to have a lawyer. Most average people don’t have thousands of dollars to spend on attorney fees, especially when they were recently injured in a car crash and can’t work.

What Is a Contingency Fee?

The concept of a “contingency fee“ allows average people the access to top litigators without having to spend thousands of dollars in attorney fees. Contingency fees give average people access to the courtroom, access that they would not normally have given how expensive it is to litigate a case. Big insurance companies and big businesses have the kind of money that they can pay high-end lawyers thousands of dollars in hourly fees. The average person does not. With a contingency fee arrangement, average people have the ability to file lawsuits against the powerful. Without this, many important cases would never see the light of day.

Most firms that focus on personal injury and negligence cases charge 1/3 of whatever amount of money that they win for their attorney fees. Also, if they do not settle the case or win at trial, then it is normal practice to not charge the client any fees. Obviously, every firm is different. Some firms may have different policies and may charge a higher percentage rate given certain cases. For example, some personal injury cases might be very difficult to win and would be very time-consuming, so the attorney will offer to take on the case but at a higher percentage rate given the risk of potentially losing.

When you sit down and talk to your personal injury lawyer during the initial consultation, they will go over the fee agreement and should discuss with you in detail the percentages and what expenses, if any, that would come out of any kind of settlement.

Percentage Fees Give Your Attorney Incentive to Win!

The benefit of having a contingency fee is that it gives your attorney a large incentive to win the case because if they do not recover any money, they will not get paid. It provides a huge incentive for your attorney to work hard and do what it takes to win the case. Attorney Robert Bates has been representing seriously injured clients in the Tri Cities region of Tennessee for over a decade. In most personal injury, we use contingency fees in representing our clients.

Robert BatesRobert is a Kingsport trial lawyer who handles car, truck and motorcycle wreck cases across the Tri-Cities. Every client gets his cell number.