How much do Personal Injury Lawyers Charge?

Our law firm works on a contingency basis, which means you don’t pay any up front fee and you don’t pay at all unless you receive funds from a settlement or verdict.

Did you ever wonder why very good personal injury attorneys offer their services at $0.00/hour ?

• It’s true. Some very good Atlanta injury lawyers offer their services and agree to be paid at the end of the case rather than as the case goes along. A fee to be paid out of money collected at the end of the case is called a contingent fee because the lawyer agrees to be paid only if there is a monetary recovery for the client. This arrangement can be beneficial under certain easily understood circumstances. This is especially true for a catastrophic car wreck.

Most Atlanta injury lawyers make money in one of two ways:

• 1) they charge an hourly rate for their time, or 2) the charge a percentage of whatever property is recovered because of their efforts. When a lawyer charges a percentage they are agreeing to a fee that is contingent on any recovery being made. When a lawyer on a contingent fee recovers nothing for the client then the client owes nothing to the lawyer. Some lawyers choose to offer their services on contingent fee basis to allow people with limited resources to be able to afford to hire quality counsel.

Ok, so why do some Atlanta injury lawyers charge an hourly fee and some offer a contingent fee?

• Just as there are doctors who specialize in different parts of the human body, there are lawyers who specialize in various parts of the body of law. Some type of legal work is intended to produce a document such as a will, trust, contract, rental agreement. Other types of legal work are intended to produce a result such as a ruling from a judge, jury award as compensation for injury.

• In cases where the ultimate result is a document, lawyers will charge an hourly fee for the time they spent producing the document.

• In cases where the ultimate goal is obtaining an amount of money as compensation to the client for injury done to the client, the lawyer will often agree to accept a percentage of any recovery rather than require that the client pay an hourly fee.

• A contingent fee makes absolute sense in cases involving personal injury. Suppose a person is severely injured from a car wreck or truck wreck or from a DUI or texting driver. Immediately that person’s life is turned upside down. Rather than working and earning income they are not working and accumulating doctor, hospital, anesthesia and therapy bills. Even people who make a comfortable living don’t have a bank account waiting around to pay all of these sudden bills, and they certainly don’t have another bank account waiting to pay $300/hour for legal counsel on top of that.

• This is where the contingent fee makes perfect sense. The Atlanta injury lawyer knows that the client can’t pay an hourly rate for service, and the lawyer also has knowledge from experience how to maximize an injured person’s recovery to compensate for their losses. In appropriate cases lawyers will often agree to work “for free” until the time the client recovery money to address their losses, at which time the attorney charges their fee, not as an hourly rate, but as a percentage of the recovery.

What about expenses such as filing fees and court costs and deposition transcript fees and fees for expert witnesses? Who pays those in a contingent fee situation?

• Most commonly the attorney who agreed to take the case on a contingent fee also pays the file expenses as they come due. The lawyer then requires that the client pay the lawyer back for the out-of-pocket expenses at the time of case settlement. And if there is no settlement then the lawyer has lost both the value of his or her time as well as the out-of-pocket costs they advanced on the case.

• Not all Atlanta injury lawyers charge the same percentage as a contingent fee, and many also charge different amounts depending upon the complexity of the liability (proving who was at fault) and damages (explaining how the injury caused the eventual result). Atlanta injury lawyers generally charge less for cases in which they do not file suit and more once suit is filed. Car wreck cases are often a lower contingent fee than complex premises liability or medical malpractice cases.

But what about instances when the lawyer just writes a letter and the case settles – how can the lawyer in good conscience and in good ethical practice charge the whole contingent fee? Let’s address this topic from several angles.

• First, most ethical lawyers will make an honest assessment of the case as presented by the client to form an initial impression whether the client needs a lawyer. At my law firm we make this assessment in every case and often tell clients that in our opinion we can get no better result for the client than the client can without a lawyer. We never hear from some of those people again, and some of them call weeks or months later asking for representation because the process was more difficult or aggravating than they expected. We are glad to assist in such cases.

• Second, when a client retains counsel to recover money as compensation the client is seeking the best possible result. Suppose our firm, or any Atlanta injury lawyer, obtains an offer of $25,000 (policy limits) within a few weeks of being hired. The client is no better served by an attorney who drags out the process if the end result is the same $25,000.

But won’t all contingent fee lawyers wind up obtaining generally the same result for their clients? Aren’t all lawyers capable of writing a letter to the insurance company or trying the case?

• The short answer is: not really. All lawyers are licensed to practice law, yes. But a license does not equate to ability. Anyone who pays green fees is licensed to play golf on that course, but the fact of being licensed to hit the ball doesn’t mean they can drive 300 yards and shoot at or under par.

• Also insurance companies are businesses charged with making and saving money, not paying out money. The companies keep track of what lawyers will or won’t litigate a case, will or won’t try a case, and which will or won’t take a case on appeal when necessary. The insurance companies compile data which tracks the results of different lawyer On top of that, the insurance company adjusters and managers know through experience which lawyers are more effective than others. There is general agreement among lawyers, mediators and insurance company representatives that “who the lawyer is” on a case make a difference in how or whether the insurance company offers to settle the case and, if so, for how much. In other words, not all contingent fee lawyer are treated equally by the insurance companies.

In a perfect world there would be no need for lawyers: people would admit fault for their mistakes and those injured through the fault of another would seek and receive fair compensation. But until that time, contingent fee personal injury lawyers will remain as a resource for injured victims who lack the resources to pay an hourly fee when seeking fair and just compensation.

Have you or a loved one been injured in an accident? The injury lawyers at Link & Smith, P.C. can help you. Call us today for a FREE consultation at 404-315-8840.