There is no standard fee for a personal injury lawyer, but most lawyers use a fee that will start at around 30% of the settlement and go up from there. The standard fee may be determined by what other legal firms are charging for their fees, or it can be based on what the market will bear for a fee arrangement in a region.
The standard fee for an attorney in New York City or Los Angeles will be different from the standard fee of an attorney in a small town in Iowa or Kentucky. Also, the standard fee will vary depending on the attorney or law firm’s reputation and how well they service their clients getting them top dollar on their claims and cases in the past. So while there may not be a standard fee, the amount and manner you pay your lawyer should never be a secret—even in a contingency fee arrangement where you do not know the exact amount until the end.
You are paying for the expertise of your lawyer, in that individual’s ability to get you the money you need after your accident. If you have experienced personal injuries, you will need some money to come in to pay for your medical bills. You may have also had lost wages and need to be reimbursed for the time that you had to take off of work. It is important to find out what the personal injury lawyer knows how to do– that is the real focus of the discussion.
If you have been in an accident, you will have some questions for your personal injury lawyer. You will need to ask yourself: is this person going to get you the money you need to pay your medical bills, lost wages, and expenses? That is the most important determination you can make in this type of situation. The fee will be negotiated between you and the lawyer as you decide that the person from the law firm will represent you. Once that is decided, you will want to feel confident that the person can do the best job for you to get you the recovery compensation you deserve. The good news for everyone in a contingency fee arrangement is that the more money your case gets, the more money your lawyer gets, so they are highly incentivized to get you the most money possible.
All lawyers are educated at law school and have a basic education in the law once they graduate. But that does not mean that they understand the intricacies of settling your case with the big insurance companies. All lawyers need to pass the bar in their state and practice in a conscious and integrity-filled way, making the best case for their clients at all times. This does not mean that all lawyers have this high level of integrity when they practice law at their law firm.
When you go to talk to the attorney who will handle your claim, you need to understand the legal experience of the person you are talking to at that point. If your attorney is good at Contract Law, this may not be the best person for your personal injury claim. The caveat is unless that Contract Law attorney also has managed personal injury cases as well as Contracts-based litigation.
It will be important for you to find an Atlanta personal injury attorney because you need someone who knows and understands how to approach the big insurance companies to get the best settlements. For example, there is a way to handle complex and comprehensive settlement cases. The attorney may not have a good network or relationship with the big insurance companies. If this is the case, the attorney may be frustrated if the insurance company does not readily or quickly return the calls. This is easily managed with an attorney who understands that the insurance company claims representatives are busy and will get back to them in due time. Patience is key in these situations.
This is critically important that your lawyer has litigation experience and negotiation experience in and out of the courtroom. While it is true that most lawsuits settle well before they go to trial, some lawsuits do make it to trial. That means that your attorney has to know how to win a lawsuit, even if the one you are working on is planning to settle well out of court. Anything can happen, and anything can change, and you need to be with an attorney who is cognizant of what to do if these situations flip at a moment’s notice.
Your attorney also needs to know how to talk to people at the big insurance companies in an amicable way. You would be surprised how many attorneys believe that yelling into a telephone gives them authority over an insurance company representative. This tactic never works. All it does is show the big insurance company that the attorney is unable to settle the claim in a way that will benefit all of the parties.
Yelling, being aggressive, and not negotiating fairly will never win a claim, and it will also never bring your case to a successful conclusion with the money you want at the end of the settlement. The end goal is only one goal: to get the highest amount for the settlement package that you can get for your claim.
Attorneys need to be level-headed and know how to negotiate a claim or a case under any circumstances calmly. Even if someone else is yelling at your attorney on the other end of the phone, the attorney needs to show calmness and continue the conversation with tact and diplomacy. If your attorney cannot be calm under pressure, this may not be the best match for a legal representative for your case or your claim.
The standard fee that your attorney tells you is necessary to pay for those legal services being offered may or may not be negotiable. This is because the attorneys often have a set fee that their legal offices use in most cases or that the law firm prefers to use for claims. You should approach this issue as one that you may not be able to negotiate, as a standard fee is, in fact, “standard” in most cases. This means that the lowest fee is the standard fee, and often the attorney’s fees go up from there.
You need to consider the standard fees offered by your attorney as a requirement for you to book or solicit their legal services. If you do not like the standard fee being presented, it is better that you seek legal representation elsewhere.
If you have any questions regarding legal standard fees, give us a call, and we are happy to walk you through our approach. We are here for you and know what to do to get you the money that you deserve regarding determining the standard fee for a personal injury lawyer in this type of situation. Just call us at (833) 254-2923. We are ready to help you get back the money that you deserve when you are personally injured in these kinds of cases. Call us today for a free consultation.