Finding a Lawyer - What You Can Expect to Pay...

When finding a lawyer, you'll interview them to learn several things. You want to know about their experience, their views on your case and how much money they think you can get. You also want to know what all this will cost and what you're getting for your money.



You'll find that most lawyers operate the same way in terms of billing and the money they take from your claim. The workings inside each law firm can be quite different though. You'll need to ask who will actually be doing the work for the money you're paying.

As for finding a lawyer that's right for your case, you want to know about their experience. What's their track record? How much of their work has been in personal injury cases, and how many of those cases were similar to yours?

Then you’ll want to know if they’ve had dealings with the insurance company you’re up against, or the adjuster handling your case. Just as important, you'll need to know if they generally represent plaintiffs, people like you, or defendants, meaning insurance companies.

You may want to find a lawyer who's used to working against the insurance companies. But it's not a bad thing if your lawyer has past experience working FOR the insurance companies - inside knowledge of how your opponents operate is always helpful.

The tougher questions come when you find yourself talking to the lawyer about payment. They'll tell you how much you can expect to pay from your settlement.

They'll end up charging you a percentage of your award. This is because most of us can’t afford to pay a lawyer up front. On the same note, we can’t afford to pay the lawyer by the hour as the case moves along. Because of this, it's usually best to do what's called a contingency fee. This is where the lawyer takes a percentage of your award.

The contingency fee is almost always very high, usually around thirty three percent. Sometimes they'll ask for as much as forty percent of the money you're awarded. That means if your case is ultimately awarded ten thousand dollars, your lawyer gets four thousand. While this seems like a huge amount at first, remember that the lawyer is taking a chance by representing you. If your case ends up losing, the lawyer gets almost nothing for their work.

We say “almost nothing” because there's more than just a contingency fee to discuss when finding a lawyer. There are also working costs. Typically those costs will be deducted from your compensation before the lawyer calculates their contingency fee.

So, looking back at your ten thousand dollar award where the lawyer incurred five hundred dollars in expenses and is charging a 40% contingency fee: $10,000 - $500 = $9500. 40% of $9500 = $3800. In this scenario you're paying out a total of $4300.

You'll want to discuss the fine print before signing anything. Situations will arise where you don’t get any compensation. Does your contract still call for the lawyer to be reimbursed for expenses? What if you're awarded less than the total expenses? If you bring this up before hiring the lawyer, you'll be able to work out a deal. Usually you'll wind up splitting the expenses if the compensation ends up being that low.

Now that you’ve discussed fees, you'll want to know who's doing all the work. Just because you find an experienced lawyer doesn’t mean they'll personally handle every aspect of your case.

In a law firm lawyers usually share the workload. They also have paralegals who do a lot of the paperwork. This is good for you because, if you're paying by the hour, you're better off paying a paralegal than their high-priced boss. But you want to know (after going through the trouble of finding a lawyer with the right experience) that they won’t be passing off the case to a less experienced colleague.

A final thought on all this: there's a good chance you've already done a lot of the work on your own case. You might have collected witness statements and all the necessary documents.

If you're finding a lawyer to handle a case that you’ve already done a lot of work on, you'll probably be able to negotiate a lower contingency fee. Make sure you bring all of your work with you to show the lawyer before negotiating any payment structure.

Still have questions about the fees you'll have to pay after finding a lawyer? Click Here.


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