The standard in our business in injury attorney business or the personal injury business is one-third of the recovery plus cost. In most cases that fee can go up to as much as 40% as you approach trial and the reason that it goes up is because it reflects the additional work, effort, risk, etc. that’s involved in preparation for trial in trail for trying the case. Some states have statutory limits on how much an attorney can charge in a case for example the state of New York tells us that in any claim the most an attorney can charge is one-third of the recovery. Other states have limitations on the amount an attorney can charge you on a particular type of case so for example Louisiana, Texas have limitations in the amount that the fees an attorney charge in a workers compensation case. So the starting point is a third and there may be some differences based upon contract, statute, law, the state in which you reside, etc. But the important point to remember is this, is what do you get from your money right? So what a good, experienced, resourceful, capable, reparable injury attorney does for you is takes care of all of the financial responsibilities associated with the case, that means medical care, that means as necessary advancing money for lost wages, helping you to keep yourself and your family going, getting you transportation to and from the doctors and in additional it takes all the risk. So a good, reputable, qualified injury attorney will advance or spend a lot of money on a case getting it prepared for trial. Sometimes in our circumstances we’ve spent over a million dollars preparing a case for trial. If we go to trial and we lose that case we absorb that loss, you don’t. We don’t come looking to you for that money so we take a lot of economic risk and that’s great because it puts you and I in the same boat right? If you win, I win. On the other hand if you don’t win, I lose. And that’s what you want, you want a community of interest. So the important thing to remember about an attorney’s fee in an injury case is that you want to pick the attorney that’s going to give you the most bang for your buck because every injury attorney is going to charge you the same fee so pick the one that can give you the best results.
