Category: Personal Injury

Are Personal Injury Lawyers Worth Your Time and Money?

Insurance adjusters, your friends, and other parties might tell you that hiring a personal injury lawyer is not worth the time and money. They may argue you can do the same thing an injury lawyer can do and save money. However, that is not always the case.

Straightforward, minor personal injury cases that do not involve severe injuries or disputes about liability might not require hiring a personal injury lawyer. However, talking with an attorney before deciding to handle your injury case alone is worth your time.

You will waive your right to file a lawsuit or seek other compensation if you accept a settlement. Therefore, it is in your best interest to have legal counsel to ensure the settlement amount represents the full value of your injury claim.

Reasons Why Personal Injury Lawyers Are Worth Your Time and Money

Before you decide whether to handle your personal injury claim without an attorney, consider these five reasons why personal injury attorneys are worth the time and money:

Maximize Personal Injury Settlements

Damages in a personal injury case represent the financial losses, injuries, and other harm caused by another party. You must prove that you incurred the damages and how much the damages are worth.

The insurance company will not tell you the full value of your damages or if you ask for a settlement amount less than the damages are worth. The company will undervalue damages to avoid paying large claims.

Studies have shown that victims receive more money when they hire personal injury lawyers. Experienced attorneys understand how to value economic and non-economic damages. They know what damages you are entitled to and how to prove them in your case.

Proving Elements of a Personal Injury Claim

You have the burden of proving the legal elements required to establish liability. Liability is the legal responsibility for damages. Most personal injury claims are based on negligence, but your case could involve vicarious liability, intentional torts, product liability, or other grounds for an injury case.

A personal injury attorney understands the law. They know what you must prove and the evidence necessary to establish liability.

Even the Playing Field With the Insurance Company

The insurance company has unlimited resources to fight your claim. They have teams of insurance adjusters, lawyers, investigators, experts, and other professionals. Hiring a personal injury lawyer evens the playing field.

Your attorney has the skills and resources to investigate your claim. They can gather and preserve evidence. When necessary, lawyers hire experts to strengthen the evidence in a case. Without an attorney, you may not have the time or money to obtain evidence proving your case. You also may not understand the law that applies to your case.

Defend Against Allegations of Comparative Fault

Comparative fault is the legal theory that a victim should not receive damages if they are partially to blame for causing their injuries. State laws vary, but most states do not bar damages unless a victim is 50 or 51% to blame for their accident.

For example, Illinois’s modified comparative negligence law bars damages if you are 51% or more at fault for causing your injuries. If you are less than 51% to blame, the court will reduce your damages by your level of fault. Juries decide matters related to comparative negligence.

The insurance company may accuse you of contributory fault to avoid liability for the claim or reduce how much your claim is worth. Insurance adjusters are skillful and trained to talk to victims. If they can get you to say anything that could be construed as admitting fault, the company uses that against you.

Your attorney can handle all communication with the insurance company and defend you against allegations of fault.

Filing Litigation to Pursue Your Claim

When an insurance company denies your claim or refuses to negotiate a fair settlement, your only option may be to file a personal injury lawsuit. The statute of limitations restricts the time to file a lawsuit.

Most attorneys treat cases as if they are preparing for trial, even though most claims are settled. If settlement negotiations fail, you are ready to proceed with a lawsuit.

Do You Need to Hire a Personal Injury Lawyer?

You can learn about your legal options and determine your case’s best course of action during a free consultation with a lawyer. Get help with a personal injury case to protect your right to a fair and just settlement. 

What Percentage Do Lawyers Take For A Personal Injury Case?

In Kentucky, a personal injury case is one in which one party is injured due to the negligence of another. In these cases, the injured party has the right to compensation from the responsible party. A car accident claim is a common type of personal injury case.

In most states, if the other driver was responsible for the accident, you can file a claim for compensation for any incurred expenses with the other driver’s insurance company. If you feel the insurance company isn’t offering you fair compensation for your injuries after a car accident, you can file a lawsuit against the other driver and the insurance company. 

Other types of personal injury cases follow a similar trajectory. Usually, the case starts with an insurance claim and only escalates to legal action if needed. While legal action may be uncommon, personal injury lawyers can help with all aspects of a claim, even if it never goes to trial — and many claimants receive more compensation when represented by a lawyer.

But are they receiving more compensation after fees are calculated? Surprisingly, in most cases, they are. Hendy Johnson Vaughn, PSC, an experienced personal injury law firm in Louisville, KY, shares what you need to know about the typical fee structure for personal injury lawyers and what percentage they generally take from the cases they handle.

How Contingency Fees Work With Personal Injury Lawyers?

It helps to understand that almost all personal injury lawyers work on a contingency fee basis. This means that they initially charge nothing and only get paid if they successfully obtain money for their clients. If a lawyer loses a case, then they go unpaid.

Conversely, when the lawyer wins money, they receive a percentage of all money obtained as their fee. What percentage they take can depend on several factors. 

As a general rule of contract law, a contract requires both parties to agree to the terms before it can be enforced. Thus, your lawyer must inform you of their fee structure and get your approval — preferably in writing — before performing services for you.

Many states also have explicit laws that require attorneys to disclose their fee structure before performing services. These regulations are often strictly enforced and could result in a lawyer losing their license to practice if ignored.

Expected Personal Injury Attorney Contingency Fee Percentages

In Kentucky, most contingency fees average between 33% and 40%, but there are plenty of exceptions and variations. One of the most common variations is based on how the case ends. Many personal injury attorneys will charge a lower percentage — usually 25% to 35% — for cases that end in a settlement and then increase the percentage if the case gets more complicated.

For example, an attorney might charge 30% before a lawsuit is filed, 37.5% after it is filed, and 45% if the case goes to trial. The middle value may seem strange, but it is common for cases to be resolved via settlement after a lawsuit is filed, yet before the trial begins.

Additionally, some personal injury lawyers will charge different amounts of money for different types of personal injury cases. For example, many personal injury attorneys charge lower contingency fees for workers’ compensation cases than they do for medical malpractice or car accident cases. Some lawyers may charge as little as 10% to 20% for workers’ compensation cases.

Contingency Fee State Regulations

Another reason that contingency fees may differ throughout the U.S. is that some states cap them. For example, Michigan law limits personal injury attorneys to taking one-third of any compensation obtained as a contingency fee. This limit applies to all types of personal injury cases.

Currently, there is a ballot measure in Nevada that would place an even lower limit on contingency fees in the state. If the measure passes, all contingency fees in civil cases would be limited to 20%, the lowest limit in the country.

Fees That Shock The Conscience Of The Court

Furthermore, contract law doesn’t allow anyone to agree to a patently unfair contract. When a contract “shocks the conscience” of the court, a judge may find it invalid. While there is no set value for what constitutes an unreasonable fee, values above 50% are likely to be considered suspect by most judges.

Personal Injury Lawyer Pro Bono Work

Finally, personal injury lawyers sometimes provide pro bono services to a client. Pro bono work usually involves cases where the client is being treated particularly unfairly or is permanently disabled. If you ask a lawyer to work for you pro bono, they may not agree. However, an attorney might offer to take your case pro bono after hearing your story.

Even when a lawyer isn’t taking a contingency fee, that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t need to pay a certain amount by the end of the case. Lawyers who are working pro bono may still require you to pay expenses if they win the case for you. 

Those expenses could add up in a complicated case, but they will generally be set values rather than a percentage of your winnings.

The End Result Of Attorney Fees In Personal Injury Cases

In general, if you seek a personal injury attorney to represent you, that attorney will charge a percentage of any money they obtain for you at the end of the case. This percentage is, on average, about 33%. Even with a contingency fee, though, hiring a lawyer usually nets you more money than you would have received on your own.

5 Signs That It's Time To Switch a New Personal Injury Lawyer

5 Signs That It’s Time To Switch a New Personal Injury Lawyer

As a client with a personal injury case, you can fire your lawyer at any time, assuming that you are mentally competent. You might owe your former lawyer some money as a result, but that doesn’t mean you have to continue allowing substandard representation. Following are some red flags that should tell you that you need a new lawyer.

Your Lawyer Is Not Communicating With You

Lack of communication is perhaps the number one reason clients fire their lawyers. Your lawyer should update you on your case (without your constant prompting) and respond promptly and thoroughly to your questions and concerns. A terse “yes” or “no” answer shouldn’t satisfy you, no matter how busy the lawyer is.

Your lawyer’s failure to communicate with you on your case might be telling you something. For example, it might be telling you that your lawyer has no news to report because they are not pursuing your case. A large firm might treat you as nothing more than a case number. It might also be that your lawyer has delegated your case to a paralegal or a junior lawyer with whom they rarely communicate.  

You Don’t Like Your Lawyer

It might seem frivolous to fire your lawyer simply because of a personal dislike. It might still be the right thing to do, however, for the following reasons:

  • You and your lawyer work best as a team, with you making the major decisions and your lawyer deciding on tactical matters and executing your decisions. If you two don’t like each other, you’re not likely to work effectively together. If your lawyer doesn’t like you either, they might not give their best effort.
  • Sometimes, it’s a good idea to go with your “gut feeling.” This isn’t an appeal to magic. Your unconscious mind is a repository of facts that are too numerous to fit into your conscious mind’s limited storage space. A conclusion arising from these hidden facts could surface in your conscious mind as a gut feeling.

Of course, don’t go overboard with this. Don’t fire your lawyer simply because they physically resemble your ex-spouse, for example.

Your Lawyer Has Little or No Trial Experience

Some lawyers possess rich experience negotiating personal injury settlements but do not win at trial. While this might sound good, such a lawyer is not necessarily your best choice. Ironically, this is particularly likely to be true if you plan to negotiate an out-of-court settlement to avoid trial. 

This is because insurance companies respect lawyers who have proven the ability to take them to court and win. Without this experience, the insurance company will not respect your lawyer. They might settle your claim, but they will settle it for less than what it would have been worth if you had hired an experienced trial lawyer whom insurance companies know and fear. 

You’ve Discovered a Conflict of Interest Involving Your Lawyer

A conflict of interest occurs when your lawyer would benefit from doing something that would harm you or not doing something that would help you. Following are some examples of conflicts of interest in personal injury law:

  • Your lawyer represents both you and the defendant in the same case. The most common form this conflict takes is when a lawyer represents a couple seeking an ‘amicable’ divorce that later turns rancorous.
  • You are suing a company, and your lawyer is a shareholder in the company.
  • Your lawyer has a close personal relationship with the opposing party.
  • Your lawyer wants to charge you using billable hours rather than the contingency fee arrangement that most personal injury lawyers use.

There are hundreds if not thousands of ways that a conflict of interest can arise,

Your Lawyer Has a Bad Reputation Among Clients or Peers

Check your lawyer’s reputation on the internet and at sites like Avvo.com and Martindale-Hubbell. Ask around about them and if you have the social connections to do so. It’s best to do this before you hire the lawyer–but hey, better late than never!

A Trusted Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help You

An experienced personal injury attorney can make all the difference in the success of your claim. Switching lawyers isn’t something that you should take lightly, but it might be in your best interest. If one of the above signs applies to your situation, making a move could be the right choice.